I greatly appreciate the level of compassion and understanding your paper shows to the people in Maine through the diverse and confrontational topics you cover. As a graduate student with the University of Maine in Orono I have been following L.D. 46 – An Act To Establish a Substance Use Disorder Clinic at the Cumberland County Jail. I strongly believe that passing L.D. 46 will allow for those struggling with substance use to access treatment and therefore decrease Maine’s correctional recidivism rate.

In the first six months of 2018, 180 people in Maine died of drug overdoses. Maine is losing on average one person per day to drug-related overdoses. Instituting empirically effective treatments for substance use in the Cumberland County Jail to support those who are struggling would allow for individuals to receive treatment and education while they are incarcerated.

Establishing a substance use disorder clinic in the Cumberland County Jail could work to reduce Maine’s high recidivism rate for drug related charges. Maine’s incarceration rate has increased by 300 percent since 1980, showing us that it is time to make a change in how Maine is addressing the opioid epidemic and supports how more imprisonment does not reduce our state’s drug problems.

It is not difficult to draw the conclusion that without addressing the substance use disorder while a person is incarcerated, an individual has limited chances in changing behavioral patterns upon release. Providing access to treatment while an individual is incarcerated by establishing a substance use disorder clinic, I believe will work to address substance use disorders in a population of people who are largely underserved.

Please follow, support and advocate for L.D. 46 – to establish a substance use disorder clinic in the Cumberland County Jail.

Kathleen Lookner

Owls Head