AUGUSTA, Maine — The Democratic-led Maine Senate narrowly voted down a bill on Tuesday to allow “safe injection sites” that are beginning to emerge nationally to fight opioid overdose deaths but remain federally illegal.
Senators voted 18-16 against a measure from Rep. Grayson Lookner, D-Portland, that would allow cities and towns to approve sites where people could use heroin and other illegal drugs under the supervision of medical staff who could revive them if they overdose.
Studies from other countries have shown the sites reduce overdose mortality and infectious diseases among those who use them, and they can also link people with opioid addiction to treatment. But they are in legal limbo here despite President Joe Biden’s administration signaling last year that it might allow them to operate despite laws against them.
Maine’s opioid crisis was worse than ever last year, when 716 people died of overdoses here in the third consecutive year that the state set a grim record. The charge for the controversial centers has been led by progressives but was opposed by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat whose administration has nodded to the uncertain legal environment, along with Republicans.
That argument won out on Tuesday, with Republicans aside from Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn joining a smaller number of Democrats including Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, to oppose the bill. The chamber advanced a different version requiring Mills to assemble a group to study the issue, and that bill faces further votes in both chambers.
“I think we need to realize the enormous hole this would put us all in as a society, and I don’t think being compassionate means that you let people shoot up at will and avoid any consequences at all,” Sen. Joe Baldacci, D-Bangor, said in a floor speech against the bill.
The first sites in the U.S. opened in New York City in late 2021. Rhode Island became the first state to authorize them that year, while Democratic governors in Vermont and California have vetoed them. There are unsanctioned sites, including one whose operations were detailed in a New England Journal of Medicine paper in 2020.
The federal government funded a landmark study of two New York City sites in a May move interpreted as another indicator of a permissive posture under Biden, a Democrat. But the administration of former President Donald Trump won a 2021 appeals court ruling that called the sites illegal, meaning that policies should shift depending on the White House occupant.
Supporters of the Maine bill noted during debate on Tuesday that Maine is among the states that has challenged the federal government on issues including legalization of marijuana, which is also illegal at the federal level. They said the legal risk was low, and the potential benefits made the fight worth it.
“Let’s have the courage to move ahead and implement what research shows us is 100 percent effective,” Sen. Pinny Beebe-Center, D-Rockland, said.