Opioid Crisis Taking Toll On Maine Lobster Industry

The nation’s opioid crisis has hit hard in Maine, where at least one person died every day last year of drug overdoses. It’s also penetrated the state’s lobster industry. Some fishermen are suffering in silence in a community that rarely asks for help. Josh Kane has spent more than 15 years fishing off the coast of Maine. For 10 of those years, he struggled with an opioid addiction as his fellow lobstermen looked the other way. In Washington County, economic leaders say the impact of the opioid epidemic on the lobster industry could easily affect an entire generation. “If you look around a coastal town, you have a sense of the value of the catch coming in,” Rudelitch said. “That new roof, that investment that should have come from a series of good years, just isn’t.” click here to read the story 15:16

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.