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Bobby Charles served as under secretary of state under Secretary of State Colin Powell and as a naval intelligence officer. He has dedicated his career in public service to fighting corruption and fraud. He is the Republican candidate for governor.
Across Maine, families are carrying a heavy, often quiet, burden. Addiction doesn’t care about political parties, party registration status, or who you voted for in the last election. It touches our neighbors, our coworkers, and our loved ones in every corner of our state. Addressing this crisis isn’t a partisan issue — it is a human one.
As I spent time the last three weeks visiting treatment and recovery centers across Maine, meeting directly with the people fighting our state’s addiction crisis on the front lines, one truth has become crystal clear to me: Real solutions won’t come from a podium in Augusta. They come from listening to the people actually doing the hard work every single day.
This is what a governor should be doing — getting out into our communities and hearing firsthand from the counselors, outreach workers, and recovery staff who deal with this crisis daily. We need to know what’s working, what’s failing, and what frontline workers truly need from state government to do their jobs effectively.
For too long, state government has offered promises while the situation on the ground has deteriorated. Look at the record. Hannah Pingree oversaw Maine’s opioid response for five years through the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future — years that became the five worst in state history for overdose deaths. In 2018, before Pingree took over, Maine recorded 354 overdose deaths. Under her leadership, that number climbed as high as 716, and in 2021 Maine’s increase in overdose deaths ranked third worst in the entire country.
Meanwhile, neighboring New Hampshire, with a nearly identical population, held roughly steady over that same stretch, not coming close to Maine’s numbers in recent years. Maine voters — whether you are unenrolled or a Democrat who feels let down by current results — have every right to ask why our state fell so far behind while spending so much.
Hannah Pingree had five years and an entire state agency to do this job, and it became the worst period in Maine’s history for overdose deaths. Meanwhile, our biggest cities and towns are still dealing with open drug activity and homelessness that the state government has failed to get a handle on. Bureaucratic management and well-intentioned talk haven’t saved enough lives. I believe they have enabled a continuing cycle of loss of life.
I believe we need a firm, compassionate shift in direction that combines accountability with genuine support. As governor, I will go after the cartels and gangs bringing deadly drugs into our state, stop the flow of drugs at the source, and stop enabling addiction instead of managing it. We must secure our communities, support law enforcement in stopping traffickers, and simultaneously bolster the recovery networks that give people a real second chance.
Maine doesn’t need more top-down mandates or political excuses from Augusta. We need common-sense leadership that listens to local experts, holds government accountable for its results, and puts the safety and health of our communities ahead of politics. That starts with listening to the people living and working through this crisis every day, which is exactly what I am doing this week — and what I will continue to do as your governor.