The opioid/heroin issue is on just about every state legislature’s agenda. Even Congress, which won’t even hold hearings on the president’s budget, passed a bill — though, characteristically, without funding, so it won’t do much.

Maine lawmakers, united on little else, enacted a modest, $2.5 million measure in January, split evenly between hiring more Drug Enforcement Agency agents and opening a detox center in Bangor.

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, now running for the U.S. Senate, has been among the more vocal leaders, calling a special session and introducing bills to improve agency coordination and drug treatment.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage, budging slightly from his contention that only law enforcement can work, accepted the detox center and signed the bill, but has done little more.

Sen. Angus King, a former Maine governor, has become a spokesman for northern New England states where overdose deaths have increased, though his plea for $600 million was spurned by Congress, despite 400 overdose deaths last year in New Hampshire, and 272 in Maine.

The word “crisis” hangs over the issue, and misuse of both illegal and prescription drugs is rising. But our history in dealing with drug use is fraught, and we ought to be careful.

There may be no more egregious public policy failure than the “war on drugs,” declared by Richard Nixon, funded and launched by Ronald Reagan, and ramped up by Bill Clinton and the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill.

The results, two decades later, are millions of Americans imprisoned for long terms for drug possession, federal “trafficking” convictions of users selling drugs to their neighbors — and a huge increase in jail and prison populations, and in government spending. Yet illegal drugs are widely and cheaply available; the “war” has failed.

We also must keep things in perspective. The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC), says deaths from opioid overdoses have doubled over 15 years, to 30,000 a year. This number seems startling — but CDC also reports alcoholism is responsible for 88,000 deaths, three times as many, and cigarette smoking causes 480,000 premature deaths — 15 times as many.

Of all the harmful substances human beings ingest, tobacco is the most pernicious, yet our law enforcement efforts to prevent cigarette sales to minors could best be described as casual. Enforcing cigarette laws isn’t a DEA mission.

Clearly, we need to do a better job with addiction in all its forms, but are proposals in Congress and the state legislatures going to accomplish much?

To start, we ought to declare a moratorium on increased law enforcement spending. Of all options, this is the worst, since it has proven both enormously expensive and enormously ineffective.

The drug dealers LePage caricatures at his “town meetings” would be out of business without these drug laws. We should listen, instead, to Chief Justice Leigh Saufley, who said, “We can’t incarcerate our way out of this problem,” which “will do nothing to help society return to health.”

Treatment is the popular alternative; according to Sen. King, there’s room for only 10 percent of those seeking treatment. Yet treatment, too, is expensive, and often unsuccessful. While as a society we need to help anyone addicted to drugs, it’s hard to stay sober, and may take years to get there.

Prevention is the best solution, yet it figures almost as an afterthought. House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, D-Showhegan, was unusual in introducing a bill, L.D. 1594, to provide a substance abuse program for grades 6-12; it was rejected by the Education Committee.

Nor is it only drugs, legal and illegal, where prevention should come first. After the 1998 tobacco settlement provided millions for state budgets, Maine launched robust education efforts, cutting teen smoking rates in half. But our attention drifted; an estimated 18 percent of Maine teens have tried electronic cigarettes — just as addictive. That’s a higher number than those who smoke.

In the end, we must recognize substance abuse as a complicated issue resistant to quick solutions. Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry observed, for instance, that Maine’s previous “success” in limiting prescriptions for oxycontin is one probable factor driving the heroin boom.

So, too, for efforts supported by Gov. Hassan to “clean out” drug dealers from certain neighborhoods. Any positive results are usually short-term, and the problem migrates elsewhere.

We shouldn’t give up. Alcoholism and deaths from cigarette smoking, as well as drugs, are to a large degree preventable. If we’re willing to do the difficult work, and stick with it, it will make a difference, and perhaps, as Saufley said, “help society return to health.”

Douglas Rooks has covered the State House for 31 years. Comment is welcomed at: drooks@tds.net

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