Down East epidemic

Even in black and white, the frustration shouts from the page. “Why doesn’t anyone help us?” Washington County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Michael Riggs was quoted in this newspaper Monday. “Why are we seemingly left alone here?”

Lt. Riggs’ frustration is warranted. His department, and the other underfunded and understaffed municipal departments in the area, is fighting an epidemic of heroin use. Just as he and his law-enforcement colleagues predicted more than a year ago, cheap, readily available heroin is flooding the county, washing in on the wave started by the rampant abuse of the prescription drugs Dilaudid and Oxycontin. This catastrophe, and the accompanying increases in crime, have alarmed judges and health care providers, and have drawn the attention of the national news media.

The pattern of heroin use following prescription drug abuse is well known – once the market of addicts is created, the hard part of the heroin dealer’s job is done. What sets this devastating decline in motion also is well known. It’s poverty.

Washington County has long been one of the state’s poorest regions – wages always are low and unemployment always is high. Add to that the despair that comes when the poverty continues even while other places enjoy an economic boom, and the conditions that lead to drug abuse are in place. Given the decades of neglect the region has suffered, the descent by many into drug addiction is not surprising, it is the predictable result. Though the percentage of the Washington County population that has succumbed to drug addiction remains small, the evidence from everywhere – big cities and small towns – is that is does not take many addicts to have an impact that is enormous and devastating.

Raising up a region impoverished for so long is hard work; building the infrastructure of transportation, telecommunications, utilities and education that leads to prosperity takes patience and commitment. The despair is not from it taking so long, but from the lack of state policies and initiates to even get it started.

It may be unreasonable to expect government to fix longstanding problems quickly; people have every right, however, to expect government to respond to crises. This particular crisis was too long ignored and, to the surprise of no one who is familiar with these issues, has only gotten worse.

Two particular acts of neglect stand out. The heroin invasion in eastern Maine has been under way for several years; even throughout the recent economic boom and several years of surpluses in the state treasury, the budget cutbacks imposed on drug enforcement during the recession of the early ’90s were never restored. A bill last session would have made additional 12 drug-enforcement agents available to local police departments in the region. It never made it out of committee.

Second, despite the obvious need, Washington County remains one of the few places in Maine without treatment services – no detox centers, no rehab. Under the leadership of the Regional Medical Center at Lubec, and with extraordinary commitment by citizens, local and county government, health care providers, Acadia Hospital and the state Office of Substance Abuse, a remarkable plan has taken shape to create intensive treatment centers in Calais and Machias.

The problem is that the major federal grant to get these centers and other valuable programs started – $500,000 a year for three years – will not take effect until next July. That is simply too long to wait. The state, under the leadership of the governor and legislative leaders, could make the money available now, an advance on the federal grant, to meet this urgent need. Washington County needs help and it cannot do it alone.