From January to October 2022, 581 Mainers died of a drug overdose. From January through October 2023, 513 people died from a drug overdose. Those numbers, on paper, somehow indicate an improvement. As if 513 funerals could be considered a good thing. An “improvement.”

I feel like I’ve been writing about Maine’s drug policies for years now and nothing really changes. Isn’t one definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results? We aren’t going to arrest our way out of the drug crisis. We’ve treated this like a “war” for 50 years and our society has pretty clearly lost the war on drugs. The drugs won. Maybe it’s time to try a peace process?

I am what most people say they want for people suffering from addiction. I’ve been sober for 5 1/2 years, I own my own home, have a job, take care of myself and contribute to my community. I have healthy, loving relationships. I have two rescue dogs, for crying out loud! A major factor in my ability to recover and build this little life for myself is the fact that the substance I was addicted to, alcohol, was perfectly legal to possess. Certain actions involving alcohol are illegal – public consumption, operating under the influence, etc. – but the simple possession of that addictive and deadly substance is not.

Folks who have been fortunate enough not to have had contact with the criminal legal system don’t always realize how destructive it can be, and how detrimental it is to climbing into sobriety and putting together a good life for yourself. If I had been arrested for simple possession of alcohol – if alcohol was treated in our legal system like hydrocodone is, for example – I could go to jail for up to five years.

Ever tried explaining a yearlong gap on a resume to an employer? Getting a good job with jail time on your record is hard. Most people have preconceived notions about the trustworthiness of people who have been incarcerated, and the average employer isn’t interested in taking chances. Many landlords won’t rent to someone who can’t “pass” a background check.

Heck, if you Google someone and their mug shot pops up, that’s going to cause problems that will follow them around as they try to recover and put their lives back together. Incarceration also separates people from their families, friends and support systems and, like any form of separation, puts strain on those relationships. A therapist once told me that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s community and connection. Making or maintaining those connections from behind bars is not easy, and it puts more roadblocks on people’s paths to recovery.

It is for these reasons that I am fully in favor of L.D. 1975, “An Act to Implement a Statewide Public Health Response to Substance Use and Amend the Laws Governing Scheduled Drugs.” It’s a bipartisan bill – which is automatically pretty impressive – to decriminalize simple possession of scheduled drugs in Maine, as well as setting out a plan for several statewide recovery centers. Any bill that has Sen. Stacy Brenner (a classic organic-farmer liberal) and Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham (the House Republican leader) as co-sponsors deserves serious consideration.

I’m not optimistic that it will pass the House and Senate. Even if it does, Gov. Janet Mills has said she is very much against decriminalization. That’s understandable. Gov. Mills spent her career as a prosecuting attorney. Supporting this bill would mean rejecting the approach – the carceral, punishment-oriented approach – that she has taken for 40 years.

Has that approach worked? Absolutely not. But it’s human nature to stick to your guns.

So I’ll stick to mine. If we actually believe that addiction is an illness – which I do, although as someone who has that illness, I admit I’m a bit of a biased source – we have to act like it. The idea of decriminalizing drug possession is new and scary. But that’s OK.

You know what’s way scarier to me? Five hundred and thirteen deaths. A single death – my father’s – pushed me over the edge of problem drinking and into full-blown alcoholism, with all the suffering and issues that radiated from that. Multiply that by 513, and you get a massive ripple effect. Full waves, really. If we want to stop the deaths, we need to make it easier for people to have lives. This bill is an important first step. And as anyone who’s been to a recovery program can attest, the first step is vital. Everything to follow builds on it.

Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial