AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) — President Trump on Monday traveled to New Hampshire to outline his plan for dealing with the country's serious opioid drug problem. It's a problem that resonates through Maine.
A total of 418 Maine people died from drug overdoses last year.
Some of Maine’s top political leaders said Monday they don’t know if the current session of the legislature is ready to make a bigger effort to fight the drug.
State government has taken some steps in the past few years, including increasing the number of drug agents, adding a detox facility and imposing new restrictions on doctors prescribing opioid painkillers. However, many legislators and drug treatment experts have said they need to do more.
Deciding what the next steps should be poses a challenge to legislators, as several leaders in both parties on Monday told NEWS CENTER Maine there is no real consensus on what needs to be done, or how much money to spend.
"We can always keep putting money into treatment, we could," said Rep. Ellie Espling, assistant GOP leader in the Maine House. "I don’t think we could ever put enough in to solve this problem. It needs to be broader than that. We need to see what’s working and what has good results and I don’t think we have a good sense of that."
Democratic Speaker of the House Sara Gideon agreed that a comprehensive plan is needed, but said more money for treatment is essential.
"But what we have to do," Speaker Gideon said, "is actually pass something comprehensive that includes treatment, that gets to the most people possible and begin to turn the tide on the epidemic."
We asked if, at the end of the current legislative session, Mainers will see that something significant has been done to address the problem. The answer was surprising.
"It remains to be seen and will only happen if we are able to come together and put together a very substantial package," Gideon said.
The legislature formed a special Opioid Task Force last year, and it came out with 20 recommendations in December. Several of those proposals are being debated now as bills in the legislature.
Gideon and Espling said they don’t know which of those proposals will finally pass. Both leaders said that for many legislators, the opioid crisis apparently is still not as high a priority as it needs to be.