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Opioid crisis

Treatment. Housing.Accountability.

People caught in addiction need treatment and a sober place to live afterward. People who sell the drugs need to answer for it. In Pan Atlantic Research's December 2025 poll, 19 percent of likely voters named drug addiction and treatment among the three most important issues facing Maine.

19%

Of likely voters who named drug addiction and treatment among their three most important issues. That is the poll's own label. It is a top-three share, not a claim that addiction outranked the cost of living or housing.

49

Of the 391 people who died of overdoses in Maine in 2025 had no home, the state's July 2026 overdose report found. About one in seven of the deaths reported so far in 2026 were people with no home.

Sources: Pan Atlantic Research, 67th Omnibus Poll, November 29 to December 7, 2025 (820 likely voters); Maine Attorney General and University of Maine, Maine Monthly Overdose Report, July 2026

Treatment and recovery housing

Get people well, then give them a door that isn't the street.

Addiction, and the revolving door. Treatment first, sober housing after, and courts that send people to recovery instead of back to the street. In 2025, 49 of the 391 people who died of overdoses in Maine had no home. So far this year it's about one in seven.

Treatment first, recovery housing after, and courts that send people toward recovery instead of back to the sidewalk. A bed with no treatment plan is a pause. Treatment with nowhere sober to sleep is a plan that fails at the door.

Maine already runs adult treatment and recovery courts in 14 of its 16 counties. Use them. And drug possession remains a crime here. The way out for someone addicted should run through treatment, not through pretending the drug is legal.

Sources: Maine Continuum of Care, FY2026 federal application (Adult Treatment and Recovery Courts); 17-A M.R.S. §1107-A, unlawful possession of scheduled drugs; Maine Attorney General and University of Maine, Maine Monthly Overdose Report, July 2026

Accountability

The person who sells it is not the person who is addicted.

We do not treat those as the same case. Someone in the grip of addiction needs care and a place to recover. Someone who traffics the drug that is killing Mainers should be prosecuted for it.

That is a distinction, not a slogan about a neighborhood. It is how a town keeps sympathy for the sick from becoming cover for the trade.

Source: 17-A M.R.S. §1107-A, unlawful possession of scheduled drugs

What we'd do

Three answers, kept separate.

  1. Treatment that follows the person.

    Care that continues after the first night, including the court-ordered outpatient treatment law Maine already has, and the treatment courts already running in most counties.

  2. Recovery housing.

    Sober housing after treatment, so the week someone gets well is not the week they are back outside.

  3. Prosecute dealers.

    Keep possession a crime, and hold the people who sell these drugs to account. Enforcement and treatment are a pair, not a choice.

  4. Count the results.

    Judge a program by how many people are alive, housed, and in recovery, not by how many it enrolled.

The wider homelessness page

Town meeting night

Same side of the room.

Republican, Democrat, or independent, we're Mainers first.

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