While there is much to celebrate in the state’s biennial budget, there are two areas that I find quite concerning: the $45 million increase to the Maine Department of Corrections (bringing total budget to $461 million) and the $80 million increase to the Department of Public Safety (bringing total budget to $127 million).
When compared to the $2.5 million for the Opioid Use Disorder Prevention and Treatment Fund and $3.7 million to the Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, it’s clear that the state is deciding to continue to amply fund the failed war on drugs instead of leading the way on compassionate, evidence-based treatment and harm reduction.
We continually put vast amounts of money into systems that take freedom away from people and turn them into numbers, while giving the bare minimum to non-punitive recovery systems. We take people who have made mistakes, remove them from their communities and families and place them in facilities where they are isolated and frequently face dangerous situations.
Most of these people will eventually be returned to their communities and families, but are they returning better than before they went in? We should be focusing on creating systems that actually center on rehabilitation instead of punishment with the possibility of rehabilitation.
Timothy Duffy
Portland
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