Maine lawmakers had a chance to end the state’s war on drugs. They failed. – Bangor Daily News

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Elijah Munro-Ludders is a recent graduate from the University of Maine Political Science Department where he was a Drug Policy Research Fellow.These are his views and do not express those of the University of Maine System or the University of Maine. He was invited to share his perspective by the Maine chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members columns appear in the BDN every other week.

Despite a decades-long war on drugs, problematic substance use remains an issue across the country. Maines Legislature had the opportunity to pass a bill, L.D. 967, that would have reformed our failed approach by decriminalizing possession of drugs for personal use. But our elected officials in the state Senate rejected itand failed our state.

In Maine, nearly 50 Mainers a monthare dying from overdoses, and 2021 is on track to be our deadliest year on record. The most recent Maine datashows that we continue to arrest and incarcerateindividuals for possession at striking rates. Maine alone spent more than $6.5 millionpolicing substance use between 2017 and 2018. The war on drugs has had devastating effects on Maine communities. Punishing people who use drugs doesnt work.

L.D. 967, would have restructured our states sentencing procedures for low-level possession of drugs. Minor amounts of drugs for personal consumption would no longer have been a criminal penalty, but a civil one instead. Rather than sending people who possess only small amounts of drugs to prison, this would have provided pathways to recovery.

L.D. 967 is not as radical as it sounds. Countries around the worldhave used decriminalization policies to successfully address their opioid crises. If youre skeptical about decriminalization, consider the following points.

First; the stigma around substance use often flows from misguided understandings of drug use and addiction. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that less than a quarterof those who use heroin in their lifetime struggle with addiction. This means that the majority of people who use heroin do not experience problematic drug use and live perfectly healthy lives.

Second; despite this, the punishment for being arrested for possession has life-long consequences. Those charged with possession, holding even small amounts of drugs, have a significantly harder time obtaining jobsand housing prerequisites for being a functional member of society.

Third; substance-use disorder often begins with health issues that are entirely unrelated to someones decision to use drugs. Research conducted in 2011 found that a staggering 80 percentof people with substance-use disorder began first with prescription opioids. Its no secret that the pharmaceutical industry has a history of overprescribingpowerful drugs for even minor injuries doctors are even paidto do it.

Finally, systems designed to hold bad actors accountable have failed us. The real bad guys in this story arent our community members getting locked up. Big Pharma has been involved in countless trials and faced huge legal settlements totaling in the billions of dollars but this does not compare to the thousandsof Mainers who have died in the opioid epidemic sparked by these companies. Nor do these settlements even approach the actual costs of opioid use disorder, an annual loss that one recent studyput at over half a trillion dollars.

With our antiquated system, we have to ask ourselves what to do next. We could keep throwing money at the problem, arresting Mainers on minor possession crimes despite the lack of progress. Or we could consider fair and reasonable alternatives. Thats what L.D. 967, and the diverse coalition of advocates working on it, boldly did.

L.D. 967 could have been a turning point in Maines failed war on drugs. It was a sign that our state is coming to understand that substance use isnt what we thought it was, and that trying to punish away the problem hasnt worked.

This conversation about policy alternatives should not, and will not, stop here. We must return to decriminalization as a policy alternative if we want to stop the irrational policy of drug criminalization, and follow a fair and compassionate path forward.

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Maine lawmakers had a chance to end the state's war on drugs. They failed. - Bangor Daily News