AUGUSTA — A trio of legislative committees Tuesday took a first look at a $4.9 million bill meant to increase treatment for drug addicts and put more drug agents on the street to stop the flow of illicit drugs into Maine.
But lawmakers already were split on the measure, which would fund 10 new Maine Drug Enforcement agents and expand treatment coverage for addicts, including a new $1 million inpatient facility in Bangor that could treat up to 10 addicts at a time.
On Tuesday, members of the Legislature’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee, joined by members of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety and the Health and Human Services committees, took hours of testimony from state officials, police officers, legislators and recovering addicts.
Over the next several days, those committees will move to work sessions to begin refining the details of the legislation before it moves to the full Legislature for consideration in the weeks ahead.
Complicating the issue are House Republicans and officials in Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s administration who said the funding for the new drug agents was already in place for the current budget cycle. They agree money to fund the 10 new agents is necessary if they are to continue after 2017, but are now questioning the need to quickly pass a bill without a thorough review.
LePage and his staff told reporters Tuesday that the governor will veto the measure if it comes to his desk with any earmarks in it for specific drug treatment organizations — specifically the Maine Association of Substance Abuse Programs — or specific facilities, including the new 10-bed detoxification center planned for Bangor.
On a radio talk show Tuesday morning, LePage made his threat to veto the bill.
“I’m just not putting up with it,” LePage said. “The corruption is over.”
Conservative lawmakers say they want to hold off on expanding addiction treatment and counseling programs in Maine until they can more fully understand how an estimated $71 million a year for those services is being spent.
Later on Tuesday, LePage again took aim at lawmakers in his weekly radio address, leveling several charges against them, including renewed criticism of their work on the opioid addiction crisis.
“They finally agreed to pay for some Maine Drug Enforcement Agency agents,” LePage said in the recorded message. “However, like Washington, D.C., politicians, they included money and special favors for their friends. The bill sends money for drug treatment to hand-picked organizations whose programs have been ineffective.”
But Patricia Kimball, the executive director of the Bangor-based Wellspring, an outpatient addiction program, told lawmakers that programs offered by the Maine Association of Substance Abuse Programs had a 60 percent success rate compared to a national rate for similar programs of 49 percent.
Kimball, in an exchange with Rep. Deborah Sanderson, R-Chelsea, said the association never asked to be the agency named in the bill but suspected they were because they had experience in setting up programs and could do so quickly and effectively.
Nick Adolphsen, the legislative liaison for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers that as much as $500,000 in drug counseling and treatment funding went unspent last year and was returned to the state’s General Fund.
But some lawmakers questioned how much of that funding — about 70 percent of it paid for with federal Medicaid money — was being spent on alcohol addiction and how much of it was focused specifically on opioid drugs.
Adolphsen said that any bill aimed at trying to reduce the state’s opioid epidemic should also focus on ensuring those who prescribe opioid drugs are doing all they can to prevent abuse and diversion of the painkilling drugs that are often the source of addiction problems. Adolphsen suggested more physicians be required or encouraged to use the state’s prescription-management program.
“Seventy-five percent of heroin users began their addiction with a legally prescribed opioid,” Adolphsen said. “And Maine ranks as one of the top per-capita prescribers of opioid pain medications in the nation.”
He said that in 2014, Maine health care providers wrote 1.2 million prescriptions for 324,000 individuals, “or approximately one-quarter of our state’s population.”
These statistics are not lost on lawmakers, who said Tuesday they saw an opportunity to encourage medical professionals to tighten oversight as part of a more comprehensive approach.
Lawmakers on the committee Tuesday afternoon heard from dozens of addicts in recovery from around the state, all of them urging the Legislature to act quickly and expand access to treatment and counseling programs.
Kevin Mannix, a well-known Maine television personality and weather forecaster, was among those offering support for the bill, which remains in draft form.
“I’m not here as a weatherman today,” Mannix said.
He said his own life story was one of recovery from the impacts of being a child from a home that was plagued by alcoholism and depression.
“People often feel embarrassed or ashamed to reach out, and that’s why we need to re-educate society on the importance of compassion and acceptance,” Mannix said. “It has to become OK to struggle at times and reach out without shame.”
Mannix urged lawmakers to put as much of the money in the bill as possible into “prevention, treatment and recovery.”
Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck offered lawmakers some difficult statistics to consider, including the fact that robberies in Portland saw a 50 percent increase from 2014 to 2015. He said nearly all of that increase was related to substance-abuse issues.
“That’s not to say that because you suffer from a substance-abuse disorder, you are a criminal,” Sauschuck said. “But just like any other population, there is a small percentage of that group that is committing crimes in our communities to survive day to day.”
Sauschuck detailed what he called “a list of guarantees,” including that addiction issues were not confined to any specific group of people.
“It doesn’t care how much money you are making; it doesn’t care how old you are — it impacts everybody across the board, and it doesn’t care about borders, one way or the other,” Sauschuck said. “Another guarantee — we can pay now or we can pay later — you’re going to pay.”
He urged the committee to keep in mind whatever lawmakers ended up with for legislation would be a starting point. “It’s not an ending point for where this needs to go.”
Others, including Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, urged lawmakers to move quickly because lives were truly at stake.
“Don’t wait — act now,” Mills said. “The need is here; the time is now.”
sthistle@sunjournal.com
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