When Peter McCorison started working with the Aroostook Mental Health Center in the early 2000s, the region was in the throes of a “big methamphetamine outbreak,” he said.
“There were so many young people who were really dependent on meth for a couple years,” recalled McCorison, a substance abuse program director, at a recent community forum. “We were able to stop the flow of that drug coming into The County and people found recovery.”
McCorison credits the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and area police departments with uncovering numerous “meth labs” — the do-it-yourself manufacturing of the high-power stimulant from cold medicine — as well as public health organizations for their education and prevention efforts among youth and adults.
The trouble is, today, meth is still being made, sold and consumed in Aroostook County and Maine. The MDEA has busted 19 meth labs so far this year. A record 56 manufacturing and disposal sites were found last year, 13 of them in The County.
Despite state-imposed limits and tracking of over-the-counter sales of the cold medicine pseudoephedrine, clandestine manufacturing of meth remains a “cottage industry,” McCorison said. Meth users can range from construction workers who take the stimulant during night shifts to young people experimenting with hard drugs, he said.
It’s not clear how widely used meth remains, compared to a decade ago when McCorison said the problem was really bad. One source of data, the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, suggests that use among youth is not common and declining.
In 2009, 5.8 percent of Aroostook County high-schoolers said they had used meth at least once, while in 2015, self-reported use among that cohort was down to 3.6 percent. Statewide, meth use among high-schoolers fell from 7.3 percent to 3.3 percent over that same time period.
But meth remains so biologically and socially destructive that law enforcement and public health groups are hoping that more awareness can help reduce the drug’s presence in northern Maine. The group Healthy Aroostook Drug Free Communities is considering a public service campaign modelled on the Montana Meth Project. The project’s ads feature graphic photos of the health consequences of meth, and have been credited with reducing teen and adult use of the drug by more than 50 percent.
Adverse effects of meth include insomnia, aggression, depression, weight loss, weight gain, heart attacks and strokes, said Joey Seeley, an MDEA agent who spoke at a recent Aroostook County safety symposium.
“When I first went to Maine Drug Enforcement Agency in 2014, we made a bust in Mars Hill,” Seeley recalled. “Seven months later I went to interview the individual. They had gained 60 or 70 pounds and I did not recognize them.” (Seeley said he used to take over-the-counter pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine used to make meth, for allergies, but stopped once he realized how chemically similar the two substances are.)
On the social side of the equation, properly cleaning up after a meth lab can cost as much as $10,000, while also meaning lost income for rental owners and diminished property values for homeowners nearby.
One of the reasons meth remains so persistent, though, is its relative simple manufacturing via the “shake and bake” method, with pseudoephedrine and a number of common chemicals such as antifreeze and paint-stripper.
“Everything to make to make a meth laboratory you can buy at Walmart for $78,” Seeley said.
The MDEA has a lot of experience with meth labs, and people should be comfortable contacting the agency about anything suspicious in their communities or out in the woods and fields,he said.
Specifically, watch out for reddish-stained containers and chemical odors that smell like solvents or ammonia, or cause eye or nasal irritation, Seeley said. “Keep in mind that this stuff is explosive. Get a hold of law enforcement.”
