Tag: maine

Maine Democratic Governor And GOP Senate Leader Oppose Bill To Decriminalize Drugs And Invest In Treatment

Maine saw a reduction in the number of overdose deaths in 2023. But with hundreds upon hundreds of drug-related deaths last year, advocates and lawmakers say the state is still in the midst of a serious crisis.

In total, there were 607 confirmed or suspected overdose deaths in 2023, a 16 percent drop from the record total of 723 in 2022. Along with the 607 deaths, there were 9,047 confirmed nonfatal overdoses last year (compared to 9,760 in 2022).

“I think it’s hard to talk about this because that’s still 607 people who died last year and I don’t want to celebrate that whatsoever,” said Courtney Gary-Allen, organizing director of the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project. “That being said, there is a reduction, and I think we should be proud of the work that we’ve all collectively done on this issue.”

Gary-Allen cited investments in treatment by Gov. Janet Mills’ administration, the bipartisan consensus that substance use is a serious crisis that needs to be addressed, and the passage of the Good Samaritan law—which created enhanced protections from prosecution at the scene of an overdose to encourage people to call for help—as possible reasons for the reduction in deaths in 2023. Others have also cited the increased availability of the opioid overdose reversal naloxone.

Still, Gary-Allen said there is much more to do to address the overdose epidemic.

“I still have the faces in my head” of those who have died from drug overdoses, she said.

One proposal, backed by advocates in the recovery community and sponsored by Rep. Lydia Crafts (D-Newcastle), is to decriminalize the personal possession of illegal drugs and invest in an array of treatment options.

Supporters of the measure argue that criminalizing drug use pushes people into the shadows, making it harder for them to get help. Policing drug use and imprisoning people for substance use-related crimes also takes money away from a treatment-based approach, proponents of the bill say.

In all, policy analysts estimate the state could save around $45 million a year from not punishing people for possession of small amounts of drugs. Under the terms of the proposal, that money would then be invested into expanding what advocates say are often scant treatment options around the state.

Keep reading

Maine Police to Probe Predator Poacher’s Bust To Ensure Rights of Alleged Pedo Weren’t Violated

Police in Maine say they’re investigating the Predator Poacher group’s recent bust of an alleged pedophile, claiming they want to ensure the rights of the suspect weren’t violated.

In footage recorded by group leader Alex Rosen, a Somerset County officer can be heard telling Rosen he was under orders not to accept evidence from the group, which had just garnered a taped confession of guilt from an alleged child predator they’d baited online, and that only information given to the officer by the suspect could be accepted.

“We had a catch today in Maine where the PREDATOR admits to real life victims, child porn, an attraction to infants, and sexual intent with a 13-year-old decoy… All of this was bundled into a 2 hour long confession, and Somerset county cops didn’t want to even view the evidence. Instead they let a dangerous predator drive off…” Rosen documented on X Sunday, tagging the Maine State Police in the post.

Rosen published screenshots of graphic text message conversations exchanged with the alleged child predator, who believed he was speaking to a 13-year-old before attempting to go meet the child in person.

Keep reading

Maine moves to create ‘sanctuary state’ for child sex changes

A Maine judiciary committee will decide on Wednesday morning whether a bill permitting minors to travel to the state to seek sex changes and granting the state custody over children will move to the floor. 

LD1735, also called An Act to Safeguard Gender-affirming Health Care, was introduced to the House of Representatives in the state in April of 2023 by Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono, and is cosponsored by Reps Erin Sheehan of Biddeford, Nina Milliken of Blue Hill, Suzanne Salisbury of Westbrook, Mark Worth of Ellsworth, and Rep. Matt Moonen of Portland as well as Senator Anne Carney of Cumberland.

Courage is a Habit, a group fighting for parental rights in states across the nation, is leading an effort to stop this bill. With a deadline of 10 pm on Tuesday, the group urges the public to contact members of the state judiciary committee to voice their concerns. 

Alvin Lui, president of Courage is a Habit, told The Post Millennial that people who do not live in Maine should contact the committee members as well as Maine residents as the bill “affects everybody’s parental rights.”

Sample emails provided by the group tell the members that “There is a lack of long-term studies on the benefits of ‘gender-affirming care,’ which could result in the life-long sterilization and surgical mutilation of children,” “With lawsuits against hospitals and schools on the rise in 2023, the public is becoming more aware of the potential risks associated with this bill,” and “Protecting parental rights and the well-being of children should be our top priority. I urge you to vote “ought not to pass” on LD 1735.”

Keep reading

Maine’s Bad Prostitution Law Could Be Coming Soon to Your State

In 2023, Maine became the first U.S. state to partially decriminalize prostitution. It’s unlikely to be the last. And sex-worker rights activists are concerned.

By criminalizing prostitution customers but not sex workers, Maine’s law may seem like a step in the right direction. But it threatens to derail momentum for full decriminalization, while recreating many of full prohibition’s harms.

It also represents a paternalistic philosophical premise: that sex workers are all victims and their consent to sexual activity is—like a minor’s—irrelevant. And this premise is used to justify all sorts of bad programs and policies, including drastically ramping up penalties for people who pay for sex.

Keep reading

Maine Secretary of State Claims Politics Played ‘No Role’ in Booting Trump Off Ballot

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has denied that politics played any role in her unilateral decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot, as she faces backlash that includes a push for her impeachment.

Ms. Bellows, whose office oversees elections in Maine, ruled on Dec. 28 to disqualify President Trump, who currently leads the Republican primary race, from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot on the grounds that he supposedly incited an “insurrection” when a crowd breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Her decision was based on an interpretation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars people from holding office if they’ve engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. government. President Trump, who has denied such allegations, has not been charged with insurrection.

While Ms. Bellows has been accused of making a politically-driven decision to interfere in the election, she denied that her decision to disqualify President Trump from the ballot was political.

“Politics and my personal views played no role,” Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, claimed in a Jan. 1 interview with NPR. “I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and that is what I did.”

Despite such denials, Ms. Bellows has faced sharp criticism.

Keep reading

Secretary Of State That Kicked Trump From Maine Ballot Wants ‘Better Leaders’ In Power To Prevent ‘Election Sabotage’

The precedent being set by states like Colorado and Maine could change the political landscape of America forever if allowed to go unchallenged.  Removing presidential candidates from the ballot based on unilateral opinion rather than any kind of legally arbitrated decision or criminal conviction is the most slippery of slopes for a number of reasons.  The most dangerous implication being that a handful of officials can decide for the entire population of their states (or the entire population of the country) what leaders they are allowed to vote for based on a “guilty until proven innocent” ideology.

Meaning, all they have to do is make accusations of criminal behavior or criminal intent and then remove a candidate based on those accusations alone. 

No person or group should have that power.

One could argue that this is already the case and that the two party system filters out candidates on a regular basis.  However, the notion of state ballot removal is a decidedly leftist/Democrat affair clearly engineered to benefit the progressive power structure for many years to come. 

It’s not only about Donald Trump – Woke bureaucrats could use this trend in the future to deny ballot access to any conservative candidate on the grounds that they “might” represent a “threat to Democracy.”

This is essentially the message conveyed by Secretary of State Sheena Bellows, now well known as the person responsible for single-handedly removing Trump from the 2024 election ballot in Maine. 

Keep reading

Hundreds of Illegal Chinese-owned Marijuana Operations Taking Over Maine

Hundreds of illegal Chinese-owned marijuana growing operations have been popping up across Maine over the past three years.

On Tuesday, Nov. 28, local law enforcement shut down an illegal marijuana grow that was being operated in a building located behind a licensed marijuana cultivation facility in Franklin County.

Officers from the Wilton Police Department were assisting investigators from the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) during a routine follow-up inspection of a licensed facility in Wilton when they raided the illegal operation, authorities said in a press release posted on social media.

“It’s a place that has been on the radar,” State Rep. Mike Sobeleski (R) told The Epoch Times, adding that he had visited the facility previously. The Republican lawmaker said he had learned about the raid just minutes before Tuesday’s interview with The Epoch Times to discuss the illegal marijuana operations being run by Chinese nationals throughout the state.

Earlier this month, a man identifying himself as the property manager told the Maine Wire that the building was being used to grow marijuana and that operators paid about $30,000 per month in rent.

He also reportedly told the news outlet that the facility was being run by four Asian men who claimed they were from New York, California, Washington, and Massachusetts.

Keep reading

Almost Entire US State Becomes Victim of Major Data Breach

A significant data breach in Maine has compromised the personal information of at least 1.3 million residents.

This breach, reported by The Hill, occurred earlier this year and involved a cyberattack on the MOVEit file transfer system. This system is widely used by various government agencies at both state and federal levels. The breach resulted in the exposure of names, dates of birth, social security numbers and government IDs of potentially all 1.38 million residents in Maine.

The cyberattack, initiated by a Russian ransomware group, had a global impact, affecting at least 70 million people. The Maine government, in a press release, stated, “Since the onset of the incident, the cybercriminals involved claimed their primary targets were businesses, with a promise to erase data from certain entities, including governments.” However, despite assurances from the cybercriminals that data obtained from governments has been erased, the state is urging individuals to protect their personal information.

Keep reading

Don’t Blame the Maine Shootings on ‘Woefully Weak’ Gun Laws

Five months before an Army Reserve sergeant killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine, his relatives told police he was increasingly paranoid, erroneously complaining that people were describing him as a pedophile. Two months later, he underwent a psychiatric evaluation after service members who were training with him at West Point reported that he was behaving erratically, and last month he told a friend he was “going to shoot up the drill center” at his base in Saco, Maine.

The fact that the 40-year-old petroleum supply specialist nevertheless managed to commit his horrifying crimes last week, after which he killed himself, underlines the challenge of identifying and thwarting mass murderers. But contrary to what some critics claimed, the problem was not Maine’s “woefully weak” gun regulations.

On its face, Maine’s “yellow flag” law, enacted in 2019, could have made a crucial difference in this case. It authorizes police, after taking someone into “protective custody” based on probable cause to believe he is “mentally ill” and poses a threat to himself or others, to ask a “medical practitioner” for an assessment of whether the detainee “presents a likelihood of foreseeable harm.”

If the medical practitioner thinks so, police “shall” seek a court order temporarily barring the individual from obtaining or possessing firearms. The respondent is entitled to a hearing within 14 days, after which the order can be extended for up to a year based on “clear and convincing evidence” of a threat.

Since the Maine killer was released after his psychiatric evaluation at West Point’s Keller Army Community Hospital, where he stayed for two weeks, he apparently did not meet the state’s criteria for involuntary commitment. But that needn’t have been the end of the matter.

After the shootings, neighbors in Bowdoin said the sergeant’s psychological problems were “pretty well-known.” The Maine Information and Analysis Center had alerted police about his “recently reported mental health issues,” including “hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME.”

The local sheriff’s office had received disturbing reports from “increasingly concerned” relatives, a friend, and the Saco base. But its investigation did not result in an assessment or a court order, possibly because police thought his relatives had “a way to secure his weapons.”

Gun control activists complained that Maine’s “yellow flag” law is harder to use than the “red flag” laws that 21 states have enacted, which have fewer and weaker procedural protections. That criticism seems doubly misguided.

Keep reading

Cops visited Maine gunman’s home six weeks before massacre

Police across Maine were alerted just last month to ‘veiled threats’ by the U.S. Army reservist who would go on to carry out the worst mass shooting in the state’s history, after concerns he would ‘snap and commit a mass shooting’. It was just one of a string of missed red flags that preceded last week’s massacre at a bowling alley.

The revelations came as more than 1,000 people packed a cavernous church on Sunday night, with hundreds more spilling outside, to hug, sing, weep and seek comfort in the wake the state’s most deadly mass shooting. The crowd gathered for the vigil at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Lewiston, where days earlier a gunman fatally shot 18 people. Two local law enforcement chiefs revealed over the weekend how a statewide awareness alert was sent in mid-September to be on the lookout for Robert Card after the firearms instructor made threats against his base and fellow soldiers. Patrols were stepped-up on the base and a visit was paid to Card’s home only six weeks ago – neither of which turned up any sign of him – after which, they moved on.

Keep reading