Category Archives: substance abuse

Community coalitions are the change makers in substance abuse prevention

This week I’ve begun a transition professionally as I prepare to end my current role as Substance Abuse and Tobacco Prevention Manager at Healthy Androscoggin and begin my new role as the Director of Operations at AdCare Educational Institute of Maine, Inc.  As transitions in life tend to go, they bring up a period of […]

Preventing youth marijuana and alcohol use is a key to heroin epidemic

Tuesday, I was fortunate to have been invited by my friends at the Bangor Public Health Substance Abuse Task Force to a meeting they organized with Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli.  This followed the drug strategy round table featuring Mr. Botticelli and called together by Senator Angus King.  While the round […]

Maine’s Heroin Crisis: Solution Not as Simple as Enforcement vs. Treatment

The past week has seen some much-needed wall to wall coverage of the heroin crisis across most major Maine media outlets.  The most recent headlines have been around the recent rash of overdoses over the course of a 24 hours period in Portland.  This isn’t the first time we’ve seen that story.  There have been previous clusters of […]

Governor LePage Administration and Major Maine Health Organizations Oppose Marijuana Legalization Bills

On Wednesday, a large coalition of leading behavioral health, medical, and public health organizations testified in opposition to LD 1380 and LD 1401, bills that would legalize recreational marijuana in Maine AUGUSTA – Despite efforts of marijuana legalization advocates to spin marijuana legalization as inevitable, a large coalition of organizations joined forces to strongly oppose […]

Marijuana Bills are for the Marijuana Industry, Not Mainers

This Wednesday at 1 PM in State House 436, the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will have hearings on two bills seeking to legalize recreational marijuana in Maine.  The bills are LD 1380 from Representative Diane Russell (D-Portland) and LD 1401 from Representative Mark Dion (D-Portland).  Both bills offer 30-some odd pages of language […]

A Path to Wellness, Not a Jail Cell

This Friday at the State House, the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety will have a work session on LD 113, An Act to Reduce the Penalties for Certain Drug Offenses.  The bill is sponsored by Senator Roger Katz of Kennebec.  The bill, in part, looks to downgrade punishments associated with possession of heroin […]

Spring Cleaning: Don’t Forget The Medicine Cabinet

Wow, this was one heck of a winter, eh?  Well it is finally behind us.  That means it’s time to put on our work gloves, get out the brooms and get to some spring cleaning.  But, while we’re taking care of cobwebs in the kitchen and rounding up the junk in the garage, we should […]