Reports point up impacts of addiction

It seems the whole world is awash in study groups and reports these days. This past week I attended two gatherings in Maine to hear about two very different reports, both of which will be of interest to readers of this column. In addition, I want to tell you about an upcoming event in Augusta where your elected representatives can educate themselves about the impact substance abuse and addiction have on every aspect of life here in Maine.

The first meeting was about a recent report from The Brookings Institute, commissioned by GrowSmart Maine and titled “Charting Maine’s Future.” The second was concerning a report from a special advisory group to the state Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Because I represent an organization that works on substance

abuse issues in Maine, I looked at these reports to determine how they dealt with the impact of addiction – if they did at all.

Both reports provide a great deal of interesting information and a number of recommendations to improve life in Maine, one through developing sustainable economic growth and the other by reducing the costs associated with our state prisons and jails, primarily by reducing the number of Maine people incarcerated at any given time.

If we can reduce costs associated with our jails and prisons, we may have more money to invest in economic development – though that is not one of the suggestions made in the GrowSmart report, just my own observation. I will point out a couple of other ideas derived from these reports that should resonate with the readers of Finding a Fix.

The GrowSmart report discusses Maine’s dwindling population of 25- to 34-year-olds, described as “a crucial cohort for the work force.” Interestingly, and of significance, this age group also represents the largest portion of admissions in Maine for substance abuse treatment – 58 percent of the 16,706 total admissions in the year 2000, according to data from the Maine Office of Substance Abuse. Just what does this say about the state of our work force and Maine’s ability to attract ambitious employers?

The corrections study notes that in 2002, drug offenders comprised one-third of all people convicted of a felony in Maine courts. Many people in law enforcement will tell you that substance abuse actually plays a much more prominent role in criminal activity than this; some say that as many as 90 percent of all crimes committed have some connection to alcohol or drug use. Also noted in the report is the increase in the number of people incarcerated for probation violations – half of these failures are for technical violations such as failing a drug test or using alcohol while on probation, rather than committing new crimes. Again, substance abuse and addiction play an important role in our criminal justice system and place a heavy financial burden on our state.

So what are we to make of this information and these observations?

I’ll suggest one more report to you that might offer guidance. It has a long name: “Blueprint for the States – Policies to Improve the Ways States Organize and Deliver Alcohol and Drug Prevention and Treatment.” This report was produced in the summer of 2006 by Join Together, a program of the Boston University School of Public Health, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The recommendations were developed through the consensus of a national policy panel that included state legislators, state officials, union representatives, child advocates, physicians and even the former first lady of Idaho, Patricia Kempthorne. Michael Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts, was chairman of the panel. The group arrived at its findings and recommendations after hearing a great deal of public testimony and considering a tremendous amount of previously documented information.

The message to state leaders is quite straightforward: Pay attention to alcohol and drugs because they are the root of the most expensive and serious problems in all your human service and criminal justice agencies. The group concludes that state governments hold the keys to their own recovery from the loss of money and human potential because of excessive alcohol and drug use.

This report is too important a document to sit on a shelf – it needs to be put into action. Maine’s lawmakers clearly need to pay great attention to the impact of addiction on all our state systems, including child welfare, health care and education, as well as the criminal justice and economic areas noted earlier.

To help this along, our legislators soon will have the opportunity to hear directly from two of the drafters of this report. Roberta Leis of Join Together and Barbara Cimaglio, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health and a member of the Blueprint panel, will be in Augusta next week to discuss the report in person.

The informational session, which is open to the public, will take place from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1, in Room 209 of the State Office Building in Augusta. Lunchtime refreshments will be provided to lawmakers taking a break from their committee meetings and other obligations.

I urge all readers of this column to encourage their elected representatives to attend this noontime session. Our lawmakers should take the message to heart and work throughout this legislative session to understand how substance abuse affects every aspect of our lives – and how they can do something about it.

To read the Blueprint for the States report online, go to www.jointogether.org and click on “Blueprint for the States.” To contact your state representatives, go to http://janus.state.me.us/legis and click on “contact us.”

Kathleen Miller is the executive director of The Maine Lighthouse Corp., a nonprofit group that supports substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery in Maine. For more information, contact her at 288-3331 or kathymiller@fentonlawfirm.com. Please join our weekly conversation about Maine’s substance abuse problem. We welcome stories, comments or questions from all perspectives. Letters may be mailed to Finding a Fix, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04401. Send e-mail submissions to column editor Meg Haskell at mhaskell@bangordailynews.net, or phone her at 990-8291.