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Maine Compass: Eliminate police intelligence unit, fund recovery centers
Maine should invest in community rather than failed policing programs, writes the director of the Maine Drug Policy Lab at Colby College.
By Winifred Tate
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Maine can choose to invest in community instead of failed policing programs, by eliminating the Maine Information and Analysis Center Program (MIAC) and spending that money on desperately needed recovery centers throughout the state.
The MIAC is one of the latest in state agencies created to expand failed drug interdiction efforts. More than 50 years of efforts have failed to achieve their goal, in a “whack a mole” policy. Like the boardwalk game, interdiction efforts focus on suppressing drug shipments and sales in one area whacking the mole only to have them pop up again. These efforts will not achieve our goals of reducing the negative health and economic impacts of opioid and other substance use disorders.
Police say bill to eliminate intelligence unit would make Maine less safe
But critics of the Maine Information and Analysis Center say the more than $1 million in funding would be better used for other programs.
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Law enforcement leaders from around the state raised the alarm Monday against legislation that would eliminate a controversial police intelligence agency that critics say has strayed from its original mission and compromises Mainers’ privacy.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Charlotte Warren, D-Hallowell, would end the Maine Information and Analysis Center, a division of the Maine State Police, and return more than $1 million to the general fund.
Maine considers a new strategy in battle against opioid epidemic: decriminalization
Proposed legislation could make Maine the second state to stop arresting people for possessing small amounts of drugs such as opioids, and instead steer them toward treatment.
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Courtney Allen, policy director for Maine Recovery Advocacy Project, poses for a portrait recently outside the Maine State House in Augusta.
Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
“But heroin is not something you can just stop doing,” she said.
She was not able to stop for 12 years. She did sex work. She contracted HIV. She was often homeless. And she was arrested more than two dozen times, mostly for drug possession. The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram has agreed not to name her because she works with people who use drugs and is worried about putting them at risk.
Maine considers a new strategy in battle against opioid epidemic: decriminalization pressherald.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pressherald.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.