Maine lawmakers encouraged to ‘lead with love,’ reform drug possession laws

In an effort to shift the response to the opioid crisis away from a criminal justice approach to one centered on compassion and public health, state Rep. Pinny Beebe-Center (D-Rockland) is working to reform Maine’s trafficking and possession laws, which she says are currently only making the epidemic worse.

“I’ve sponsored this bill because I have seen first-hand that what we are doing in our state to combat drug use is not working. We have one of the lowest crime rates in the country, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from our jails,” said Beebe-Center in Augusta on Monday while introducing her legislation, LD 1492, to the legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

“Nationally, the number of women sentenced to jail for misdemeanors has lowered dramatically in the last few years,” she continued. “In Maine, we’ve seen the opposite happen. The number of women sentenced to jail and prison, mostly low-level drug crimes, has risen over 1,500 percent in less than 25 years and is currently six times the national average.”

Maine still has felony possession

Beebe-Center’s bill seeks to eliminate what she says are often arbitrary possession amounts that have created a blurred line between whether a person is prosecuted for possession or as a drug “trafficker” or “furnisher” — which typically carries harsher penalties.

Alternately, prosecutors would be asked to focus on the intent of the accused, rather than assume that they are trafficking based on the weight of the drugs they are carrying.

Beebe-Center would also increase the possession amount for “schedule W” drugs, such as cocaine, oxycodone, methamphetamine or fentanyl, at which a felony-level charge is triggered. The bill lifts the limit from 200 milligrams — roughly equivalent to the amount of active ingredient in a pill of high-dosage aspirin — to 3.5 grams.

“Maine’s drug laws are exceptionally harsh. Under current law, possession of small amounts of drugs is still classified as a felony,” Oami Amarasingham, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, said during the hearing. Several other states, including Connecticut, have eliminated felony-level possession as a potential charge on their books, instead bumping all possession charges down to misdemeanors.

With 68 percent of adults arrested in Maine charged with drug possession, and with a quarter of all men and half of all women currently in prison or jail there on drug charges, Amarasingham says that the state’s existing drug laws put many people at risk of lasting economic disenfranchisement through felony convictions — which can potentially bar people from securing housing and employment.

“These severe drug laws have funneled thousands of Mainers into permanent second-class citizen status,” she said.

Amarasingham further explained that most drug charges do not go to trial, but rather are often settled through plea bargains with prosecutors. As highlighted in new reporting on the state’s deficient indigent legal defense system, poor Mainers and those in drug withdrawal may choose to pay a fine and plea to a felony — even with its severe implications on their future — to avoid jail time.

Pillars of recovery

On Monday, a group of approximately 20 Mainers advocating for policies that favor harm reduction and treatment over criminalization gathered under the State House rotunda and held up signs spelling out “Lead With Love” before the public hearing for Beebe-Center’s bill.

Kenney Miller of the Maine Health Equity Alliance, testified before the Criminal Justice Committee, that the state’s current criminal justice response is undercutting parallel efforts to create an impactful treatment for Mainers suffering from opioid use disorder.

“The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has this concept of these core pillars of recovery: safe and stable housing, employment or purpose, a community that you can surround yourself with, and access to health care,” said Miller, who spoke on behalf of a group of health and recovery advocates called the Maine Coalition for Sensible Drug Policy. “For people who find themselves of the other side of the criminal justice system when they are released, all of these things have been severely compromised.”

Lewiston resident Chantel St. Laurent has been in recovery for three years. She was convicted twice, once for possession and once for shoplifting, but has been finally able to sustain her sobriety after years of difficulty. She says that the threat of jail time alone is not a policy which fosters recovery.

“I speak at the Androscoggin County Jail once a month in a women’s group and I see the same women get out and end up right back in. It’s always drug related,” she said. “Relapse after release is the norm.”

Maine’s new AG open to reform

While not fully endorsing all the details of Beebe-Center’s bill, Maine’s new Attorney General, Aaron Frey, recognized the need to reform aspects of the state’s possession laws.

“I’m confident that there’s a balanced approach that can both reduce the stigma of the disease but still take into account that we need to be mindful of the significant impact that these drugs have,” Frey said in testimony before the committee. He explained that while he did not support relaxing the statute on fentanyl possession, he was open to raising the limit on heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone and methamphetamine.

Frey conceded that the current 200 milligram limit for felony possession set in law during a previous legislative session was implemented as a compromise between lawmakers, not a dosage that health professionals determined as a reasonable amount for someone not engaged in trafficking to possess.

Maine’s District Attorneys indicated to the committee that they were similarly amenable to discussing some of the provisions laid out in the bill. However, Roy McKinney, director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, the state’s chief law enforcement agency responsible for making drug arrests, said that his department is opposed to relaxing any possession statutes.

“This is meant to change the conversation, to say what we are doing is not working,” Beebe-Center told the committee.

Tina Nadeau of the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said that Mainers must abandon a failed “War on Drugs” and put new energy and resources into treatment and recovery programs.

“We need to be tired, fed up, and furious — because that’s where change comes from,” she said.

(Photo: Supporters of Rep. Pinny Beebe-Center’s decriminalization bill at the State House Monday. | Beacon staff)