The Mental Health Department’s flexibility in postponing a methadone treatment-program in Bangor was a positive sign for the city and the potential treatment program itself. Federal, state and local officials can use the next couple of months to get a better appreciation of each other’s concerns and devise the best answer for the region.

Heroin and the synthetic opiates are being found in Maine in increasing amounts, with a parallel increase in crime. Though first detected in Southern Maine several years ago, the problem more recently has spread statewide. A recent survey of Medicaid narcotic use or abuse shows some startling results, particularly in Washington County. More than half the patients seeking treatment at Acadia Recovery Clinic in Bangor are opiate addicts — some heroin, some pharmaceutical drugs, some both.

Increased law enforcement and increased treatment of addictions are inevitable responses to this situation. What is being debated in Bangor is how these will occur. Commissioner Lynn Duby’s decision to delay opening a methadone clinic here, as proposed earlier, gives law-enforcement agencies time to test whether their new strategies for eradicating these forms of illegal drug use will work. As important, it will give everyone time to get a better sense of the problem and to understand the options for dealing with it.

A few points to consider:

Maine has the means to track sales of pharmaceutical drugs through a computer network currently recording Medicaid prescriptions. Given the sudden rise in the abuse of narcotics, the system should be used to tally all prescriptions for these drugs, as suggested recently by Tim Clifford, medical director for the Bureau of Medical Services. The results would give everyone a more accurate account of at least one part of this problem.

Bangor is a city of 33,000 residents with a social-service infrastructure to serve many times that number. The city has cooperated with the state on countless occasions to build that infrastructure, even as it saw some of its residents move beyond city limits to lower-taxed, more homogeneous neighborhoods in nearby towns. If every community has a carrying capacity for the number of services it can provide, now would be a good time to find out how much more Bangor can take.

There must be a better way than a centralized clinic for delivering treatment. With a strong suggestion that Washington County has a problem, is it effective to have a significant number of its residents drive more than four hours a day to Bangor and back to receive methadone and counseling? The prospects of getting treatment and holding a job would be even dimmer for a resident of the northernmost part of the state. Surely it is more effective to work to establish local programs, just as the state does for nearly every other outpatient service it provides.

Bangor can handle difficult decisions, but it needs to be included in the process. Commissioner Duby has opened up the discussion to the community. The City Council properly is willing to provide the forum for rational debate. Now is the time for Bangor to learn more about methadone clinics, for the state to learn more about Bangor’s concerns and for both sides to improve their understanding of the scope of the regional problem.