Grant to fund Maine Rural Substance Abuse Partnership
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
Nick Houtman at (207) 581-37771
ORONO, Maine — The Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy at the University of Maine has received a $400,000 Congressional award to fund the Maine Rural Substance Abuse Partnership. The partnership includes community-based prevention, education, and treatment initiatives in Washington County linked to a drug data-sharing consortium of rural states.
The announcement was made today in Machias by the University of Maine and members of the Maine Rural Substance Abuse Partnership – Marcella Sorg, a research associate at UMaine’s Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy; and Barbara Drisko, coordinator of the Washington County Drug Action Team (WCDAT).
The funding, to be administered by the Federal Bureau of Justice Assistance, was included in a Congressional bill and signed into law earlier this year.
Support for the grant came from members of Maine’s Congressional delegation and area legislators. That support included involvement by Rep. Michael Michaud’s office in WCDAT meetings and in community “twin summits,” held in Machias and Calais last year to identify priorities for addressing the county’s substance abuse problems. Last August, Sen. Susan Collins highlighted rural need when she co-chaired a Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs hearing on prescription drug abuse in the state. Rep. Thomas Allen and Senator Olympia Snowe have also been supportive of the initiative.
“I am extremely impressed by all the outstanding work the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy has done to address the growing epidemic of substance abuse in our state, particularly in Downeast Maine,” Michaud stated. “I continue to look forward to seeing this project move forward, so we can address these problems through treatment, education and prevention.”
Improving access to services at the community level and information about rural substance abuse at community, state, and national levels is the bottom line for the Maine Rural Substance Abuse Partnership.
“Substance abuse is one of the most critical problems facing rural populations in Maine and nationally. Funding resulting from Rep. Michaud’s leadership in the House on this issue enables rural communities in Maine, in partnership with the University of Maine and other rural states, to develop meaningful and appropriate solutions,” says Sorg, a WCDAT participant for the past two years and Partnership project director.
“While it’s occurring statewide, Washington County was one of the first counties to be identified nationally as having a problem with rural prescription drug abuse,” she adds. “The county understands it has a problem and has mobilized to do something about it. It has the potential to be a national model.”
In an academic-community partnership, UMaine and WCDAT will combine their expertise and resources in treatment, prevention, education, law enforcement, and economic development to address priorities identified by the county-wide community at the summits sponsored by WCDAT in Machias and Calais in 2003. The highest priorities include: establishing a single information source to improve access to substance abuse services; supporting community alternatives to incarceration for substance abusers; working toward local availability of long-term residential treatment; and improving sharing of county, state, and national substance abuse data to monitor potential problems.
Facilitating the latter will be a rural states database of drug-related deaths, injury, treatment, and arrest statistics to be created by the Partnership. Maine and eight other rural states – New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Oregon – will establish a Rural States Drug Data Partnership to share, analyze, and disseminate information on substance abuse. The hope is to compile aggregate data that better explain the growth of drug problems in rural areas nationally, along with community models to address problems locally.
One initiative being explored in the Rural States Drug Data Partnership is the use of GIS technology to compare characteristics of towns in the participating rural states.
Last week, the congressional Appropriations Committee reported out the Fiscal Year 2005 Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary Appropriations bill, which recommends funding the project again during the next fiscal year. This request was made by Rep. Michael H. Michaud in the bill which is expected to pass the full House of Representatives in the coming weeks.