Drug user arrested again

LEWISTON – A local woman who forecast she would probably be using drugs after her release from prison last September is back in jail after testing positive for cocaine in a random drug test.

Lisa Hanson, 37, was arrested Wednesday and charged with violating probation. Hanson, who has eight children and has been in and out of prison over the past 15 years, could now be ordered to serve the remainder of a 12-year sentence for a 1997 cocaine trafficking conviction.

Hanson’s drug abuse was chronicled last April by the Sun Journal newspaper, which described her as the “face of crack.” In a prison interview, Hanson told the newspaper she wasn’t convinced she would avoid drugs after her release – even with the threat of prison looming over her.

“When you’ve been out on the street as long as I have, there’s not a lot you have to do,” Hanson said. “It’s like riding a bike.”

Hanson was convicted in 1997 on four drug trafficking counts and sentenced to 12 years in prison with all but five years suspended, followed by four years of probation.

In the years after her conviction, she was released from prison several times but sent back each time for violating probation by testing positive for cocaine or refusing to submit to urine tests.

When she was released from prison in September, Hanson was ordered to avoid drugs and to submit to random testing at the request of her probation officer. When she was given a drug test Wednesday, she tested positive for cocaine, police said.

If Hanson is found guilty of violating probation, she will likely be sent back to the Maine Correctional Center.

Hanson’s children range in age from 4 to 22. She has admitted to using crack cocaine at times while she was pregnant.