A bill that will reduce preventable overdose deaths in Maine by making the life-saving drug naloxone more readily available passed into law at 12:01 a.m. after the governor did not sign it or veto it Monday. The final law, LD 1686, makes naloxone available to first responders, law enforcement and family members of those most in danger of an opiate overdose. It was sponsored by Rep.

Sara Gideon of

Freeport.

Drug overdoses killed 163 people in Maine in 2012, the last year for which numbers are available. Of those, 28 were heroin deaths. That number rose sharply from 2011, when 7 died. At least some of them might have been able to have been revived by an injection or nasal spray of naloxone, whose trade name is Narcan.

Opioids function in the body by attaching to specific proteins, called opioid receptors. When opioids attach, the body relaxes and breathing slows. But too much of an opioid can cause respiration to slow to a lethal level.

Naloxone acts by competing with opioids for the receptor sites, essentially pushing the opioids out of the way and reversing the effects of the drugs.

Gov. LePage was opposed to greater liberalization of the use of the drug, in part because of his belief that increasing the availability of the drug will lead the drug abuser to feel invincible.

However, people in the drug treatment community made it clear that Narcan is not a pleasant situation for the person who has to take it. The overdose — and the high — ends immediately, leaving the person in instant withdrawal.

It’s not something any addict would choose, so the notion that it will lead to feelings of invincibility seem misguided.

After some tweaking of the bill, LePage indicated he would allow it to go into law without his signature, which he has done. However, LePage has made it clear that he does not approve of drug addiction.

Last year, LePage vetoed Good Samaritan protections, in which a drug abuser’s companion could call 911 and seek help for him without worrying about being arrested himself for drug possession. He also vetoed a bill seeking legal immunity for health care professionals that administered naloxone during an overdose. And this year, he wanted additional drug enforcement agents but was silent on treatment centers in his State of the State address.

In the budget that he submitted to the Legislature in 2011, LePage sought to cut $4.4 million from the program that funds substance abuse treatment. Later, he offered to cut that reduction in half, but the Legislature ultimately refused to eliminate any of the funding.

Earlier this year, the state imposed a two-year limit for MaineCare funding for people who are being treated for opiate addiction.

But arresting our way out of an opiate addition crisis is not cost-effective, nor is it even effective, period. Gov. Peter Shumlin in Vermont said in his State of the State address that it costs $1,100 per week to imprison drug offenders, while weekly treatment on an outpatient basis costs $123.

Naloxone is a good first step. But ultimately, we have to stop ignoring the growing heroin crisis in our towns and cities, and end the cycle of addiction by ending our people’s dependence on the drug. That won’t happen magically by arrest, prosecution and imprisonment; it will happen by treatment and support.

But the first step is keeping them alive.