CALAIS – The county has hired a new assistant district attorney, and part of his duties will be to prosecute the county’s drug cases.

Richard M. McNamara, 40, who lives in Eastport, was sworn in Monday.

Before the swearing-in ceremony, the day almost turned political when District Attorney Michael Povich’s opponent, Steven A. Juskewitch, attempted to attend the swearing-in in one of the rooms at the courthouse. Juskewitch is running against Povich in the June primary.

Juskewitch was told the meeting was closed, but when he said he had a right to be there because the press was there, the meeting was moved to Povich’s office.

Before he entered law school, McNamara was a licensed physician’s assistant. For the past year, he has served as coordinator for the county’s new adult drug court, a court supervised program that requires a person to participate in substance abuse treatment, counseling and hearings.

The district attorney said McNamara would be the lead person with the county’s drug court, “and bring his unique expertise into helping us understand the screening process,” he said.

Povich said McNamara would work closely with Assistant Attorney General Matt Erickson, who, among other things, prosecutes drug cases in the county.

“He will work with him learn how to prosecute drug cases, learn the strategy, how to use search warrants and develop that subspecialty,” Povich said.

For the past five years, two prescription narcotics, OxyContin and Dilaudid, have become the drugs of choice for addicts.

When used correctly, the prescription drugs treat pain related to cancer and other diseases. When used incorrectly, they can be crushed and snorted or injected for what addicts say is the ultimate high.

McNamara also will concentrate on drug-related crimes. “We are finding drug cases tied in with burglaries. They are tied in with thefts, they also are tied in with stolen checks. People are stealing their parents’ checks or their wives’ checks and cashing them for cash,” Povich explained.

The new assistant district attorney said he believes drug court has been a success, but he said he is not naive enough to believe that it is the only solution. “Even if we could magically stop all … injection drug use in the county today, the health care fallout from it will probably continue until somewhere around the middle of this century. It takes sometimes 20 years before the hepatitis C ends up being diagnosed. This is a problem that needs to be approached from the demand side and the supply side, so that is what we are going to try to do,” he said.

Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh agreed. He said during the past three to five years he has seen more drug-related problems across the board, including more instances of home invasions and robberies.

“We’ve now seen a robbery at the Calais cemetery, and a home invasion in Eastport. We’ve seen robberies in the southern half of the county. So certainly that was something I never saw before in my first five years here, and now I think we have four pending in the court docket now. That is certainly a violent, dangerous crime that has increased,” he said.