Attorney General Janet T. Mills announces action to address the opioid crisis

June 19, 2017

AUGUSTA ? Attorney General Janet T. Mills is working with a bipartisan coalition of Attorneys General from across the country in evaluating the practices of manufacturers of opioids.

The Attorneys General are investigating what role opioid manufacturers may have played in creating or prolonging this epidemic. Since 2010 nearly 800 Mainers have died from an overdose of a pharmaceutical opioid, compared to about 600 who died from an illicit opioid.

?We need to get the genie back in the pill bottle; our society is awash in pills and it is killing us.? said Attorney General Mills. ?The vast majority of people arrested for possession of heroin or fentanyl tell us their substance abuse disorder began with painkillers. We have to confront all sources of the opiate problem, no matter the origin. It is now common knowledge that certain drug companies sold the public and medical community a bill of goods by marketing products as being non-addictive when in fact hundreds of thousands of people developed severe dependency to these substances.?

Although the Office is not identifying the target(s) of its investigation at this time, Attorney General Mills wants to assure the residents of Maine that she is actively taking steps to help address this opioid epidemic.

In addition to this investigation the Attorney General?s Office is sponsoring a public education campaign entitled ?Dose of Reality? to remind all Mainers that painkillers can be deadly, that sharing prescriptions is dangerous and that pills should be properly stored and disposed of. For more information see: http://doseofrealitymaine.org/

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