About LD 1862

Background

On May 23, 2019, Governor Janet Mills signed LD 329, An Act To Exempt from Criminal Liability Persons Reporting a Drug-related Medical Emergency (known as the Good Samaritan Bill), into law. The bill came to her desk with unanimous support from the Maine Legislature.

Maine’s Good Samaritan Law prevents a person from being arrested or prosecuted for certain violations if the grounds for that arrest or prosecution result from the person experiencing a drug-related overdose or seeking medical assistance for someone else who is.

Currently, Maine’s Good Sam Law protects:

a person who is experiencing an overdose and needs medical assistance

and/or

a person who, in good faith, seeks medical assistance for a person experiencing a drug-related overdose

from arrest or prosecution for violating laws prohibiting:

Possession of scheduled drugs
Acquiring drugs by deception
Possession of hypodermic apparatuses
Use of drug paraphernalia
Violation of probation

It’s intended to make it easier to do the right thing – to save a person’s life – without worrying that you might ruin your own life (or theirs) in the process.

In reality, it is limited in scope and the threat of criminal penalties continue to instill fear in individuals at the scene of an overdose, hindering them from calling for help.

Proposed Expansion

We are losing 12 of our friends, family, and neighbors each week to preventable overdose. It’s critical that we support LD 1862: An Act to Strengthen Maine’s Good Samaritan Laws Concerning Drug-Related Medical Assistance.

LD 1862 would expand the Good Samaritan Law to shield everyone at the scene of an overdose from arrest or prosecution for all non-violent crimes, probation and bail condition violations.

This would ensure that EVERYONE feels safe to call 911 and save lives.

Maine is one of 47 other states and the District of Columbia that have enacted some form of a Good Samaritan or 911 drug immunity law. A 2020 study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found a nationwide pattern of lower opioid-related overdose death rates among states that have enacted Good Samaritan laws, both compared to death rates prior to a law’s enactment and death rates in states without such laws. Studies also found that people are more likely to call 911 if they are aware of the laws. You can download an overview of the study here or read the full study here.

Why Change is Necessary

The fear of criminalization makes it hard to call 911 and makes recovery from substance use even harder.

We all agree that the stigma attached to substance use disorder is a problem and it makes recovery harder. One of the biggest factors creating stigma is the criminalization of people who use drugs. The fear of criminalization makes it harder to call 911. And the stigma of criminalization has real effects on people’s access to:

Housing: Most landlords conduct criminal background checks and can deny housing based on any criminal conviction and federal housing assistance programs are required to deny applicants who have been evicted from public housing within the past 3 years for drug-related reasons.

Employment: People must “check the box” if they have ever been convicted of a crime on many job applications. Unfortunately, job applicants with a criminal record are 50 percent less likely to receive a call-back from submitting a job application.

Education: If a person is convicted for possession or sale of drugs for conduct that occurred while the person was enrolled in school, the person becomes ineligible for future federal student loans.

Furthermore, arrest and incarceration destabilize an individual’s life, including their housing, health care, employment, and social connectedness. Even brief incarceration leads to adverse consequences, including loss of employment and future employment opportunities, poorer physical and behavioral health due to breaks in health care services and treatment, loss of housing and future housing opportunities, and disruptions in family life and social connections.

Once in the criminal justice system, people with substance use disorders stay in jails longer, have an increased risk for self-harm, and receive more frequent punitive responses to infractions. Due to funding and staffing limitations, most people do not receive the services they need and their conditions often worsen inside jail settings.

Furthermore, for individuals already receiving medications and treatment for substance use in the community, these services may be interrupted during incarceration, creating lapses in treatment and difficulties in resuming treatment upon release and reentry to the community.