Killing heroin

Bangor city councilors and local law-enforcement officers have reasonably requested that state officials postpone placing a heroin-treatment center here until a police program just getting under way is given time to work. The state Office of Substance Abuse wants to go forward anyway, and may have the legal authority to do so. But before this gets into a showdown between state and local officials, they should take the time to better understand what each is asking.

Everyone agrees that this region, like most of Maine, has seen an increase in heroin use in recent years and especially in the last several months. In response, the Bangor Police Department has teamed up with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency to expand training for officers, set up links among enforcement agencies to track heroin use, alert pharmacies to the rising abuse of synthetic opiates, expand resources to stop the supply of heroin and do simple things like set up a heroin hotline. A new position has been established to coordinate all of this.

The plan is based on a successful program used in Massachusetts to reduce gun-related crime. Bangor Police Chief Don Winslow said he needs three or four months to get a sense of whether it will be effective. If it is, the chronic problems of drug abuse and increased crime to support drug habits are averted. If it is not, the program can be modified or scrapped altogether and replaced. Given that the clinic will need a couple of months to get up and running anyway, there is virtually no harm in the state waiting a few weeks more to see if the police-department plan is effective.

It isn’t as if the OSA, under the Mental Health Department, merely is demanding that Bangor face up to its problem of drug abuse. It is demanding that Bangor face up to a third of the state’s problem — other clinics currently are in Portland and Winslow — and act as host to hundreds of those unfortunate enough to be caught by drug addiction. State officials say modern methadone treatment, with regular counseling and careful followup by providers, can be an effective method for treating the addiction and returning people to productive lives. But Bangor officials understandably are concerned not about those who are treated successfully but those who are not and who could increase the number and range of local law-enforcement problems, possibly adding to the city’s already substantial homeless population and increasing the demand for a variety of basic services, which the state is already satisfied to underfund.

The OSA may have the authority to site a clinic where it wants, but it will depend on the city’s cooperation to make it work. City officials should have been informed at all stages of the planning for this facility, but clearly they were not. That set a poor precedent and naturally created antagonism toward the state. Mental Health Commissioner Lynn Dube, a former head of the Substance Abuse Services in her department, has suggested more meetings with the city. That would be a good start, as would further study on the community effects of Maine’s two other clinics.

Heroin is new to Bangor, and the city is trying to understand and react properly to it. Rather than rushing something onto residents, state officials would do better to give the city time to digest the implications of a methadone-treatment facility and even to try to solve the problem by eliminating it. A few weeks is not much to ask for in such a major undertaking.