Drug rehab in Cutler
If you’re looking for a good illustration of the swords-to-plowshares principle, consider the proposal to convert the former Cutler Naval Base into a center for rehabilitating people with serious drug addiction. The location of the base is significant in itself: Washington County is home to one of Maine’s most drug-afflicted populations. Not everyone who would be housed and treated at the proposed Cutler center would be local, of course, but providing a treatment opportunity in the area would definitely be a service to those who are.
In addition, any creative re-use of an obsolete military installation is a step in the right direction. Defense spending has contributed a great deal to Maine for generations and continues to do so, but “peacetime” programs such as a drug-rehab center represent an investment in those citizens who need all the help they can get.
The model proposed for the Cutler center is Daytop Village, which has operated successful treatment programs for 40 years beginning in the New York City area. The new center would benefit from Daytop’s expertise, according to its advocates; Daytop could send staff to Cutler for training as well.
The Cutler proposal has some impressive backers, including Dr. Stanley Evans, who has been working with addicts at various locations in Maine for 36 years. As Evans puts it, de-toxing an addict isn’t enough: “you have to change the person.” Then he adds, “we often talk about the coast of Maine and how we’re interested in taking care of our beautiful coast. I would hope that includes the people.”
Who could disagree?
Great Northern
Anyone who knows Maine’s resource-based heritage would agree that the bankruptcy and shutdown of Great Northern Paper Co.’s two mills on the Penobscot constitute a tragedy of major proportions. A thousand people have been thrown out of work; the future of a whole region is seriously at risk; a legacy a century old has apparently been squandered.
The connections to Maine’s coast are both direct and indirect. Great Northern was to have been a major customer for the re-vamped port facilities at Mack Point in Searsport; Great Northern’s long stewardship of the Penobscot – where the company maintained a huge hydroelectric system until it sold it off a few years ago – made the river what it is today. Indirectly, Great Northern and its sad fate are akin to what islanders and others in remote places experience when a distant owner, corporation or government make a decision that changes their lives forever.
Natural resources and the wealth derived from them have served Maine well in the past, but whether they will continue to do will require careful attention from all of us. For all of us who depend on natural resources for a living, and who must manage, harvest and sell those resources in a global economy, Great Northern’s experience is a cautionary tale.