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Director's Corner

Director's Update

Kimberly A. Johnson, Director

 

What's New - August 2003

The legislature passed several pieces of legislation that will have a profound effect on the substance abuse field. We are pleased that a bill we submitted to revise the substance abuse counselor licensing laws was passed. This law makes a three tier licensing system rather than the current two tier system. It allows for people without degrees to enter the field and gain a license through experience, and provides for a more streamlined process to get a license for people who have obtained a degree. We hope that this legislation will allow more people to enter the field and to provide better training for those that do.

A law was passed that allowed the state to develop an electronic prescription monitoring program. This will allow the state to gather and analyze information from all prescriptions filled in Maine for schedule II, III, and IV drugs. This law was aimed at curbing the growth in prescription drug abuse. We have applied for funding from the federal Department of Justice in order to implement this program, and hope to have it fully operational by next July.

Another bill that was carried over to next session by the committee of jurisdiction would give parents the right to place their children in treatment for substance abuse against the child’s will. The legislature has asked that OSA study the idea and report back in January. Please e-mail me at kimberly.johnson@maine.gov if you have any thoughts or input into this concept.

OSA is watching the various gambling bills and referenda with interest as we are concerned about the potential for increases in alcohol abuse and in compulsive gambling and all of the concomitant problems.

OSA has been thrilled with the success of our parent education campaign “Your Teen and Alcohol: Do You Really Know?”. We had to reorder parent kits much sooner than we thought we would, and thanks to generous contributions from Anthem, WCSH 6, Sappi Fine Paper, and Peoples Bank we were able to distribute the kits and an accompanying video much more broadly than we had anticipated. Follow up research indicated that more parents are concerned about their child’s potential for drinking and that more parents ask about drinking before teens go out. While the ads have finished airing (and there are no funds to do a second run), we do intend to continue to promote and distribute the parent kit through schools and local organizations.

OSA has applied for a number of federal grants over the course of the past four months. We have heard about the award of one grant from the federal Department of Education which will allow us to continue to develop a statewide response to prevent high risk drinking on our college campuses. The grant provides staff to coordinate the effort, and focuses on using environmental strategies to change behavior. We will continue to provide updates as we hear about other grants.

OSA continues to work toward a reduction of the prescription drug abuse problem. We are pleased to have a strategic plan developed in conjunction with the Maine Center for Public Health. A technical review of our opiate addiction treatment system was completed in July. We expect a report back late in August. The reviewers commented that Maine’s response to the opiate abuse problem should serve as a model for other states. Federal data from the national household survey show that even though Maine’s prescription drug abuse problem does not seem to be any worse than other states, our treatment admissions per capita for prescription drug abuse are the highest in the nation. We hope that this means that we are capturing people early in their addiction and that we will be able to slow the growth substantially through public education and early, appropriate treatment. There are some early indicators that we are succeeding. Preliminary data suggest that treatment admissions for prescription drug abuse decreased in fiscal year 2003 for the first time in five years.

 

Previous Updates

What's New - January 2003

What's New - August 2002

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