Substance Abuse, Opioids, and Addiction at Sea

A new bill is on the way to the Maine State Legislature, and if Representative Mick Devin can get approval next year, a new task force of healthcare professionals and community leaders will work on one of the state of Maine’s greatest maritime issues; opioid drug abuse and addiction. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collect more data, it is reported that approximately 60,000 Americans died in 2016 from opioid overdose, almost a 100% increase over 2015, with 33,000 confirmed deaths. Nearly half of those involved prescription opioids. The same report concludes that among the deaths that involved Fentanyl, the Northwest states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were among the highest in the nation. While there are currently no statistics by occupation, this is an issue that often hits the fishing industry hard. The opioid crisis is especially complicated for people who work at sea. The work is physically demanding. Long hours of…

Read more detail on Recent Admiralty Law posts –

This entry was posted in Admiralty-Maritime Law and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply