AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Gov. Paul LePage is calling on lawmakers to support his proposal to boost law enforcement to combat the state’s drug problem.
The Republican governor has submitted a nearly $3 million measure to fund 14 new drug enforcement agents. The proposal, which LePage first announced in his State of the State address last month, would also add four judges and four prosecutors for special drug courts in Presque Isle, Bangor, Lewiston and Portland.
LePage said Tuesday that Maine is “losing the war on drugs on the streets,” which is causing an increased threat to public safety and health.
“We need to protect our citizens, we need to protect our unborns, we need to protect our law enforcement because every day they go up there and face crime, but we can’t just sit by and not do anything about the level of drugs that are in this state,” he said.
Critics contend the proposal’s heavy focus on enforcement - instead of treatment- is sending the state down a path that’s already failed. Drug arrests in Maine have increased nearly 240 percent since the 1980s while drug abuse has also skyrocketed, the Maine Civil Liberties Union said.
“Governor LePage himself has said that the war on drugs is a failure, yet he is proposing a continuation of those same failed policies that have wreaked havoc on our communities and our state budgets,” Grainne Dunne, justice organizer for the organization, said in a statement. “The war on drugs is one of the most costly, most wasteful, and least effective government programs ever devised.”
LePage said treatment and prevention are an essential part of combating the drug-addiction problem and he’s looking to the Department of Health and Human Services for suggestions in that area. But, in the meantime, the state must work on the drug supply piece of the problem, he said.
“Now is time to action,” he said. “Actions speak louder than words and now we need action.”
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