MDEA funding gone in ’06

I happened to call Roy McKinney, the director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, the other day to chat about the drug abuse problem that continues to ravage our state. He hit me with stunning news.

“Basically, this agency has no funding as of March 2006,” he announced.

No funding?

That’s right. President Bush’s budget released in February completely eliminates the grants that Maine uses to fund MDEA.

“Unless something dramatic happens, MDEA will cease to exist,” he said.

The number of people seeking treatment for opiate addiction has increased exponentially. Accidental drug overdoses claimed 123 Mainers last year, and patients with legitimate prescriptions live in fear that someone will learn of their medication stash and invade their homes in the middle of the night.

Oh! And one more thing: Cocaine and crack are coming back with a vengeance, and methamphetamine abuse looms on the horizon.

Knowing all that, it occurred to me that dismantling Maine’s only statewide drug task force might not be such a good idea right now. While the cuts are at the federal level, part of the blame for this debacle belongs right here at home because we became too dependent on federal money that comes and goes with the whim of an administration.

Maine’s first statewide drug task force was formed in 1988 when the federal government offered up grants to states for drug enforcement programs.

While other states used the money to enhance their drug enforcement programs, Maine used it to establish and fund one. Since then, the federal government has financed 70 percent of MDEA’s budget, with the state picking up the remaining 30 percent.

Now, the Bush administration has decided the money being handed out to states across the country is not being used effectively. It reduced MDEA’s money from $3.1 million to $1.8 million. That will carry the agency until March 2006. That’s less than a year away. After that, the funding is completely eliminated.

McKinney and the Attorney General’s Office have put in a request to Gov. John Baldacci for an additional $700,000, which will carry the agency through the end of the fiscal year, which ends July 1, 2006.

“It’s not really a very good time to be asking the governor for $700,000,” McKinney acknowledged this week.

“I’m just terrified,” said Kim Johnson, director of the Office of Substance Abuse, “I mean, the timing here is terrible. We’re like a three-legged stool in this fight. It’s prevention, enforcement and treatment. I don’t know what’s going to happen if we lose the enforcement leg.”

Sure, local police departments do some drug investigation, but with most of them facing shrinking budgets and increased calls for service, in-depth drug investigations are not likely to occur.

Most of the heroin making its way to Maine comes from Colombian crime organizations in Lawrence and Lowell, Mass. Which local Maine police department can take that on?

In 2002, the stimulant drug known as methamphetamine began to take a small hold in Aroostook County. This is a drug that is rampant across the country, can be “cooked” up by using common household products and has become known as the drug choice of soccer moms throughout the Midwest.

Agents with MDEA were able to interrupt the methamphetamine pipeline early, and in large part abolish it.

“They really made a concerted effort, and, I’m telling you, I don’t know where we would be right now if that had taken hold. I think we would definitely be facing an epidemic similar to the one we have now with opiates,” said Johnson.

Letters are now being written to Maine’s congressional delegation to urge them to fight to reinstate the funding into the budget.

That’s a start, but it’s also time for the state to step up and have some serious discussions about what it, not just the federal government, needs to do.