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Director's Corner

Director's Update

Kimberly A. Johnson, Director

 

What's New - Winter 2005

Maine’s Office of Substance Abuse has received a lot of local and national recognition this past fall since it announced the new Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP), begun in July. Highlights include recognition for the PMP at the following events: the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws National Technology Convention held in Lexington, Kentucky; the National Association of State Controlled Substance Authorities Fall Conference in San Diego, California; the Maine Benzodiazepine Study Group’s Fall Conference; the Maine Pharmacy Association Fall Conference and Annual Symposium held at Fairview Hospital in Skowhegan.

Given the extent of Maine’s prescription drug abuse problem, the PMP will help prevent and detect the diversion and abuse of prescribed drugs, particularly at the retail level where no other automated information collection system exists. The program will also flag cases where people go to several doctors and get prescriptions from multiple pharmacies. The focus of the program is not law enforcement – it is prevention and treatment of drug abuse.

In order to test the PMP data for accuracy and completeness, the Office of Substance Abuse ran a Pilot Project to allow ten prescribers nominated by the Maine Medical and Maine Osteopathic Associations to request information from the system on one of their own patients. Based on the outcome of the pilot, data will become available to all prescribers beginning January 1, 2005. After three months of data collection, the PMP data base holds over 437,000 individual transactions of Schedule II, III, and IV drugs for the state.

OSA, in conjunction with the Bureau of Health, received technical assistance from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment to fund a Community Epidemiology Services Network (CESN) to gather data and compare notes regarding trends in drug use and abuse across a variety of systems including poison control, EMT, law enforcement, public health, the prescription monitoring program and substance abuse treatment admissions.

This network will create an annual published report on drug use trends and send out alerts when any one system sees a spike in use of a particular drug. Our hope is that this early warning system will help us address drug problems before they become epidemic.

OSA was recently awarded a Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF SIG) from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This award will provide OSA with approximately $11.8 million over the next five years as part of the broader effort to build prevention capacity statewide.

Maine ’s proposal was developed collaboratively with much input and feedback from state partners who are currently part of the Strategies for Healthy Youth Workgroup (Healthy Maine Partnerships, Coordinated School Health Program, Community Health Promotion, Communities for Children and Youth, Maine Children’s Trust, Juvenile Justice, and the Office of Substance Abuse).

The SPF grant will be used specifically for building, delivering and sustaining effective substance abuse prevention services to populations at risk. This grant will allow us to hire an epidemiologist to use all of the data we gather to identify locations and populations most at risk and to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to address the greatest substance abuse problems in Maine. The money will then be put out to bid in targeted communities to address the identified needs.

In November, OSA held its Third Annual Office of Substance Abuse Prevention Providers’ Day to recognize and honor the multitude of Prevention programs in Maine. Commissioner Jack Nicholas delivered the opening remarks which focused on the noteworthy reductions in substance abuse rates as shown on this year’s Maine Youth Drug and Alcohol Use Survey (MYDAUS). Lifetime use of all substances decreased while 30 day use of all substances except alcohol and inhalant use also decreased. Of particular note was a ten percent reduction in marijuana use.

Attorney General Steven Rowe addressed the participants and discussed his efforts to tackle underage drinking through a reclassification of malternatives (also know as alcopops) and working with the alcohol industry to follow the guidelines recently established to reduce the amount of advertising that Maine’s young people see.

The staff at OSA is comprised of very hard working, dedicated employees. I have only pointed out a few of the highlights, but there are daily accomplishments that, accumulated, have made the state of Maine a safer, more desirable place to live.

Thank you for visiting our website. Please email us at osa.ircosa@maine.gov if you need assistance accessing any information. We are here to assist you.

Previous Updates

What's New - Summer 2004

What's New - Spring 2004

What's New - August 2003

What's New - January 2003

What's New - August 2002

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