HOULTON – Substance abuse counselor Phil Junson surveyed the sea of empty folding chairs last Tuesday at the Houlton Recreation Center and couldn’t hide his disappointment.

Junson, a counselor at Life By Design in Houlton, was the guest speaker at the well-publicized but poorly attended forum about escalating drug abuse in Aroostook County. Missing Link, a local group seeking to create a safe, healthy and productive community, held the informational meeting, which drew only seven people, most of whom were Missing Link members.

“More than 600 notifications about this meeting were sent out,” Junson said. “This is not a very good turnout.”

Abuse of OxyContin and other prescription drugs is growing and becoming a serious problem in Aroostook County. Of the people arrested on felony charges last year, 36 percent were taken into custody for possession of drugs such as OxyContin, according to Houlton police. The number of arrests was unavailable.

Missing Link had planned to show a video about drug abuse, but that was quickly abandoned because of the poor turnout.

“I would like to say that people are too busy or that the attendance level is due to poor planning,” Junson said. “But I believe the majority of people in Houlton still believe that this community does not have a problem.”

“Some of the parents legitimately have things to do,” he said. “But these seats aren’t filled because some people don’t want to hear about a drug problem in their community. It might mean that they would have to face that a family member has a problem.”

Houlton Police Chief Daniel Soucy said, “We have a drug problem in Houlton,” to those in attendance. “And it starts out with adolescents and teenagers smoking cigarettes. Youth also dabble with alcohol and then get into marijuana … but our biggest problem is prescription drug abuse.”

Because prescription drugs are federally regulated, Soucy said, some youths might be taking them with a false sense of security.

“We are seeing people breaking into homes to get these drugs,” Soucy reported, “and breaking into homes to get money to buy them.”

Missing Link recently launched an intensive advertising campaign in radio and newspapers to inform parents about drug abuse and to try to draw people to its meetings.

“We need to get more information out to the community, whether it is through schools or churches or the media,” group member Peter McCorison said. “The new radio ads are catchy, and I believe once they get going, people are going to pay attention to them.”

Junson said a lack of activities for teenagers has prompted some towns to build youth centers. He noted the creation of the facilities was spurred by a string of suicides and alcohol-related deaths.

“I hope it does not take a tragedy like that to motivate people in Houlton and Hodgdon,” he said sadly.