Drug summit to address transition house

MACHIAS – Turned away by the local planning board 18 months ago to site a group home for recovering drug addicts in Baileyville, Rex Nicholson hasn’t let go of his dream.

Come August, he will be found on his 30-acre property in the south part of Princeton, sawmill at work.

He intends to build a facility from the ground up, and anyone with a stake in changing the drug-ridden landscape of Washington County is invited to help.

He calls his project “Bonnie Loch,” Gaelic for “beautiful lake.”

Once his drug-free living facility takes shape, he wants to fill it with those with drug-free lives “whose hearts are as placid as Washington County lakes at sunrise.”

“We are going to clear the land and do it ourselves,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson laid out his plans Thursday at the first of two “drug summits” staged by the Washington County Drug Action Team. Meeting at the University of Maine at Machias, about 25 social workers, law enforcement professionals and residents heard just how hard hit Washington County is when it comes to illegal drug usage.

Then they talked about priorities in easing the problem. Providing places to live or “safe houses” for former drug users in transition back to their communities is one of those priorities.

The drug action group is a coalition of volunteers committed to making changes on the drug abuse landscape.

The group’s second all-day summit takes place today at the Calais Motor Inn. The meeting will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., is free and is open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Thursday’s summit brought out 25 panelists and audience members, each of whom was viewed as a resource.

“With your expertise and your determination, we may be able to help others,” Barbara Drisko, the drug group’s chairwoman, told everyone in the room.

Nicholson, for one, hopes that “people with resources, abilities and talents will come help build and sustain Bonnie Loch.

“The effort will be voluntary and informal. I’m taking the field of dreams approach … if you build it, they will come,” Nicholson said. “I’m doing that because I’ve gone every other way, and it hasn’t worked yet.”

Nicholson in 2003 had the partnership of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, which bought a Baileyville building on U.S. Route 1 with plans to use it for tribal members in recovery from substance abuse problems.

But the project couldn’t get past the planning board and neighbors who resisted the concept. Once the Passamaquoddy pulled away from the group house idea, Nicholson couldn’t get financing to move ahead on his own.

Those listening Thursday were receptive to Nicholson’s charge-ahead plans. They concurred that whatever projects or programs designed to help lift Washington County residents out of the mire of illegal drug use will likely be done on shoestring budgets, given limited funding from the state, grants or even private sources for such plans.

Topics on Thursday covered aspects of education and prevention, intervention and law enforcement and treatment and recovery for the county’s extensive community of those living with substance abuse issues.

Speakers represented the Washington County Drug Action Team, the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, the Washington County Adult Drug Treatment Court and the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy.

The summits are similar to the meetings that took place in May 2003, also on successive days in Machias and Calais. From those days, the drug action team put into place its initial priorities, including the establishment of transitional homes within Washington County for former drug users.

Those with an interest in Nicholson’s plans for a transitional home for recovering drug users in Washington County may contact him at 263-4405.