Down East drug care center proposed

MACHIAS – Confronted with the need to deal with an estimated 600 opiate addicts, Washington County residents have been invited to a public meeting Monday to talk about possible creation of a residential drug treatment center at the former Navy base in Cutler.

Monday’s meeting is sponsored by the Maine Sea Coast Mission, which has been spearheading an effort with Bar Harbor lawyer Douglas Chapman to develop long-term residential treatment for youths and young adults who are addicted to opiates in Washington County and the surrounding area.

The county has been plagued by an epidemic of prescription drug abuse. The 600-addict estimate is according to a grant application the Regional Medical Center at Lubec submitted through Washington County commissioners to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration last year.

The proposal, which requested $500,000 for three years to provide intensive outpatient counseling and methadone treatment services, was not funded.

Gary DeLong, executive director of the Maine Sea Coast Mission, said that if the proposed residential treatment center at the former base in Cutler becomes a reality, it would be a 100-bed facility where recovering substance abusers could receive services from six months to a year and possibly longer.

Kim Johnson, director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, said Maine has similar facilities – including Wellspring in Bangor – but that they all have waiting lists.

“I’d see it as an added resource,” she said.

DeLong said he and Chapman- both of whom grew up in Washington County – and Dr. Stanley Evans of Mercy Hospital in Portland met in Machias on May 24 with social service providers, law enforcement and court personnel, and hospital staff to determine which services were already available for addicts in Washington and Hancock counties.

“After May 24, several of us, including Doug and Dr. [Charles] Alexander from Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, sat and talked to Stanley Evans,” DeLong said. “We thought that something that might be helpful was a residential treatment center.”

Last month, DeLong and Chapman took a group of 16 to Daytop Village Inc., a New York-based substance abuse treatment program that is nationally known for its residential treatment facilities.

The trip was paid for by a grant from the C.F. Adams Trust in Boston, DeLong said, and the group included people who are connected with Washington County’s drug court program, lawyers who have worked with the county’s drug addicts, and community residents.

They toured Daytop’s residential treatment center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and there was enough of a positive response among the visitors to want to see whether such a program could work in Washington County, he said.

Staff from Daytop – which has 26 centers nationwide – will be in Cutler on Monday to explain their program, DeLong said.

If there is community support for a residential treatment center, DeLong said, the group will apply to the Cutler Development Corp. to use the 55-acre former base southeast of Machias as a site for the center. Part of the $20,000 grant from the Boston trust is to pay for a grant writer, he said.

Cutler Development Corp. is a quasi-municipal organization of town officials from Cutler, East Machias and Machias who, with assistance from Eastern Maine Development Corp. and the Sunrise County Economic Council, are working to develop the former base.

The group issued a call for proposals on July 23 for parties interested in developing all or part of the former base. The deadline for applications is Oct. 11.

The public meeting on the treatment proposal will be at 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5, at Bay Ridge Elementary School on Route 191 in Cutler.