Milo Police Dept among Maine agencies battling opiates

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

MILO — During a selectmen’s meeting on Sept. 15, Police Chief/Interim Town Manager Damien Pickel said the department has responded to three recent drug overdoses with one being fatal. “Because of that and the increase statewide there is a heroin epidemic in this state,” he said.

Pickel said he and other officers are authorized to administer nasal naloxone, a drug that counteracts the effects of an opiate overdose if given in time. “We are going to start carrying it,” he said, adding only a few law enforcement agencies across Maine have nasal naloxone.

In a post on the Milo Police Department Facebook page Pickel wrote, “We’re carrying it because we are usually on scene before the ambulance. Until we all figure out how to get a handle on an epidemic that has gripped this state and town for years, we will do our best to help save lives with the tools we have.”

Pickel said the kits cost about $50 and “in my mind it’s worth it if we are saving one life.”

The chief said simply locking people up is not the answer, and he has been working with the Piscataquis Public Health Council and Mayo Regional Hospital on getting a drug treatment program in Milo. He said discussions have centered on a program to provide treatments through outpatient counseling.

“I wish I could help those addicted,” Pickel wrote on Facebook. “I wish I could let them come to us and ask for help and we could take them after they surrender their drugs — no questions, no judgment. But that can’t happen because we don’t have the funding to do it. Believe me, I’ve been trying for a while. We’re a small town in a poor county so I think you can do the math.”

In other business, Pickel said a the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) conducted a speed survey on Route 11 near the new turnoff lane for the Eastern Piscataquis Business Park. “DOT has determined it should be dropped down to 45,” he said, with a request being made up the town for the speed limit to be lowered from 55 to 35 mph to account for the new turning traffic.

“We are going to have to address that because there is still going to be an issue for that entrance,” McMannus said.

Pickel said he will talk some more with the MDOT on the stretch of road.