In November 2002, the Belfast newspaper The Waldo Independent ran a “good news story” about 21-year-old Jessica Heroux’s progress toward living drug-free.

Her success sounded a hopeful note in a community where heroin and other narcotics have established a frightening stronghold in recent years.

The daughter of a recovering heroin addict, Jessie had used heroin herself for about a year before seeking help from Acadia Hospital. Leaving her small daughter Isabella in the care of family members, Jessie had enrolled in the Acadia Recovery Community, an abstinence-based residential treatment program in Bangor.

After several months of counseling and support medications – not including methadone – she moved into unsupervised transitional housing in Bangor’s Capehart area and continued to take part in counseling and other support activities.

Once she felt ready to undertake full-time parenting responsibilities, the paper reported, she planned to reunite with Isabella.

But in December, Jessie called her mother, Robin, to say she was feeling depressed and overwhelmed. Fearful of her own weakness, she said she had decided to return to Acadia to ask for support in staying off drugs.

Jessie was admitted to the hospital the next day and diagnosed with depression. Four days later, she was discharged back to her apartment. She told her mother she was dosed with 40 milligrams of methadone before she left the hospital, along with Seroquel, an anti-anxiety drug, and Zoloft, an antidepressant.

She was to return the next day to begin daily methadone dosing through the outpatient clinic.

“I talked to her that afternoon on the phone,” said Robin. “She kept asking me why I was yelling, but I wasn’t yelling. She said she was sleepy and her ears were ringing and she was going to lie down for a nap.”

Jessica Heroux never woke up from her afternoon nap. She lapsed into unconsciousness and lay on her bed all the rest of that day and night. Her unresponsive condition wasn’t discovered until the next morning, when a bus arrived to take her to the methadone clinic.

Though she was still alive when her roommate went to wake her, “they lost her in the ambulance,” said her mother. She was resuscitated at a local hospital and put on life support, but remained in a deep coma.

On Dec. 23, with no reason to hope for a meaningful recovery, Robin Heroux signed the release to let her daughter die.

The state medical examiner found low levels of methadone in her blood, along with another narcotic pain reliever, fentanyl, which the hospital had not prescribed. Their interaction, according to the report, caused Jessica’s death.

Robin insists her daughter’s substance abuse habit was minimal and that starting her on methadone was a fatal decision.

“Instead of helping her with her depression, they just swept her under the rug,” she said, bitterness filling her voice. “They figured she was a heroin addict – ‘Let’s just give her methadone and get rid of her’ – instead of helping the kid.”

Informed by her own first-hand experience with drug dependency, Robin is convinced that Jessie was on the road to a sustainable recovery and just needed some support.

Robin herself abandoned a 19-year heroin habit – when she found out her daughter had started using – with counseling, support and anti-anxiety medication to take the edge off her cravings. She struggles with depression, and the temptation to start using again is sometimes too strong; she recently checked into a residential treatment program in Portland to get herself back on track.

Robin acknowledges methadone’s value to some hard-core users, but said Acadia uses too free a hand.

“There are some people out there – some honest-to-God heroin addicts – who may need it,” she said. “But it’s not for these young kids. They’re giving it to kids who are only using Vicodin and Percocet.”Withdrawal from those drugs is minimal; they get a little sick, but it’s nothing they can’t get through. Instead they give them methadone. That’s crazy. Methadone is worse than heroin. If you’re using methadone, it takes years to get off it.

“Something’s got to be done,” Robin said, drawing hard and shakily on a cigarette. “The laws need to change. People need to know this is happening.”