Maine gov. accuses drug dealers of impregnating 'young white' girls

What do the Republican governor's comments have to do with the rising heroin epidemic?

|
Robert F. Bukaty/AP/File
Republican Gov. Paul LePage delivers his inauguration address in Augusta, Maine, Jan. 7, 2015. Governor LePage said out-of-state drug dealers are impregnating 'young white' girls, and he was quickly derided by critics on Thursday.

During a town hall meeting in Bridgton, Maine, on Wednesday, Republican Gov. Paul LePage accused out-of-state drug dealers –  "guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty" – of impregnating “young white” girls before they leave the state.

He made no further descriptions of the race of these supposed drug dealers, but critics were quick to say that Governor LePage was painting a picture in voter’s minds with connotations of negative racial stereotypes.

"This is one of the most blatantly racist statements he's ever made," moderate Republican Lance Dutson, former chief executive officer of the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center, told the Associated Press. "One of the things that's offensive about it is that it's reminiscent of this fearmongering in American history that people would like to think is long gone."

Michael Alpert, president of the NAACP’s Bangor chapter, called LePage’s comments "sad" and "foolish."

The LePage administration insists that the governor's comments were not intended to be racial. LePage's chief of communications, Peter Steele, insisted the governor wasn't talking about race when he made the comment. "Race is irrelevant," LePage's chief of communications, Peter Steele, told AP in an email. "What is relevant is the cost to state taxpayers for welfare and the emotional costs for these kids who are born as a result of involvement with drug traffickers. His heart goes out to these kids because he had a difficult childhood, too. We need to stop the drug traffickers from coming into our state."

Heroin use has been on the rise in many US communities for the past decade, up 62 percent from 2002, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection. The increase has been particularly pronounced among whites, women, and young people. Many users are believed to have turned to heroin after becoming addicted to prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin. In many cases, crackdowns on misuse of pills has driven users to the streets in search of alternatives.

Maine has been especially hit hard by the opiate scourge: the number of people who died from a heroin overdose has jumped from just 7 in 2011 to 57 in 2014, the Portland Press Herald reported in August.

The lack of state funding for treatment programs has also placed the state in a difficult position. In May of 2015, Mercy Recovery Center, one of Maine’s largest treatment centers for heroin use, announced that it would be closing. Some of the center’s detoxification services have continued, but its outpatient services have been significantly cut back.

In the fall, a task force was created to assess paths forward for tackling Maine’s drug concerns, with an emphasis on law enforcement and curbing out-of-state dealers.

“Law enforcement is not interested in filling county jails with drug users,” Public Safety Commissioner John Morris told the Portland Press Herald in October. “We must hunt down the dealers.”

But critics contended that treatment centers must also be part of the path forward, and without the proper funding for the needed care, there is a risk that many people will end up relapsing.

“It's frustrating not to be able to get people services who desperately want it,” Dr. Mary Dowd, the medical director at Milestone Foundation, a detox center in Portland, told NPR.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Maine gov. accuses drug dealers of impregnating 'young white' girls
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0108/Maine-gov.-accuses-drug-dealers-of-impregnating-young-white-girls
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe