Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.
Over the five years leading up to 2019, more than 1,600 people in Maine died from drug overdoses. We were losing a person every day. About 8% of all babies in Maine were born substance-exposed—that's three each day. The life-saving drug Naloxone was not generally available. There were few treatment beds, and when someone was ready to get into recovery, even fewer treatment options were available if they didn't have health insurance.
When I took office, I knew that what Maine had been doing for so many years just wasn't working. We needed a coordinated response that broke down the silos of government, set aside the stigma, and spoke out about every aspect of the opioid epidemic. I promised that we would put the full force of my Administration behind the families who lost loved ones, the businesses who lost employees, and all the communities that have been diminished by this public health crisis.
So my first executive order, signed on my first day in office, fulfilled the will of the people of Maine and expanded MaineCare to more than 90,000 people. Today, nearly 40,000 people receive treatment for substance use disorder through MaineCare. Expanding health insurance was a critical first step to confronting the opioid crisis.
I named Gordon Smith as my Director of Opioid Response, and I signed the second executive order with basic strategies and specific action steps. That order established a Prevention and Recovery Cabinet made up of commissioners from 14 government agencies and the Attorney General's Office and the Judicial Branch.
We outlined key steps to preventing overdoses and deaths, including making Naloxone widely available statewide, and since early 2019, we've distributed more than 870,000 doses of Naloxone, which has saved thousands of lives.
We then outlined steps to expand effective treatment and recovery measures, including training 250 recovery coaches and funding recovery coaches in ten emergency departments. Now we've trained more than 4,000 individuals as recovery coaches, and we've increased the number of certified recovery residences from 11 to 119.
We've created youth recovery coaching programs in Hancock and Washington counties in the schools, creating peer-to-peer connections that can give a young person the hope to face the future. And we held statewide trainings and leadership conferences, which taught more than 400 youth how to create positive change in their communities.
We created TreatmentConnection.com, a one-stop-shop for individuals seeking treatment that allows them to find out in real time what there is available for behavioral health services among more than 500 providers. Since that went live in 2025, TreatmentConnection has been used 8,000 times.
We're also increasing good-paying jobs for people in recovery, rewarding businesses who understand the unique experiences of people in recovery. And we've created the Recovery Friendly Workplaces designation, a certification held by 86 businesses who employ nearly 25,000 people statewide.
You know, we're not giving up on interdiction as well, making sure we take drugs off the street as much as possible to keep people from becoming addicted in the first place. My Administration is doing what we can in a responsible manner to stop deadly drugs from reaching Maine, to prevent substance abuse in the first place, to treat it when we can't prevent it, to set people on a lifelong path to recovery, and, above all else, to save lives.
From January to June of this year, fatal overdoses decreased by nearly 9% in Maine. This is the fourth consecutive year of declining overdose deaths. And that's welcome news, but we know we can't be complacent. Every overdose is a tragic and, I believe, preventable loss of a valued life. So let's all recommit to supporting people as they start, stumble, or resume their recovery, and to responding to new phases of the opioid epidemic to save lives.
This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.