One reason the overdose death of Bethany Fritz was such a shock was the setting: York is a family resort town with a rich, 350-year-old history, located just over an hour's drive north of Boston.
"It really opened our eyes," Cryan said, "and made us realize we had issues."
Before that, police in Maine had been primarily concerned with OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller. Now cocaine and heroin have emerged as major problems, and the cause is a combination of supply and demand.
"People who get hooked on it create their own demand, soliciting customers so they can pay for their habit," said Strong, the Kittery police chief.
In 2007, for example, SNIF detectives uncovered a cocaine ring operated by Leslie Smith, who did body work at a Kittery garage. Smith, 44, and three friends were making daily trips to Lawrence for cocaine, using some of it themselves and selling the rest in Kittery and Portsmouth at a 300% markup.
The detectives, working with a DEA-led task force in Lawrence, arrested Smith and his friends. They also got his source, a Dominican dealer in Massachusetts, after Hamel made several undercover buys. All are in federal prison.
In the last year, though, heroin has flooded Maine and New Hampshire as OxyContin addicts turn to heroin. A bag of heroin costs about $5 on the street here today, compared with $50 for an OxyContin tablet.
"Heroin arrests are up 100% from just three years ago," Hamel said. "And I can't remember the last junkie I busted for heroin who didn't say he started with OxyContin. And why not? They can get a hit of heroin for less than a six-pack of beer."
At Counseling Services Inc., an addiction treatment facility in Maine, Medical Director Dr. Patrick Maidman said the number of people seeking help for addiction to opiates such as OxyContin and heroin had been overwhelming.
"We're not able to manage the volume of people looking for help," he said.
It was five years ago that Bethany spent her last night at her best friend Amanda Corey's house, a New England colonial nestled in woods near I-95 and a sign that reads: "Welcome to Maine. The Way Life Should Be."
Amanda tried for several hours to wake her friend that morning and finally called an ambulance in the early afternoon. Bethany never regained consciousness and died later that day.
"If you had asked me back then how many teenagers were using heroin, I'd have said very few and I couldn't name one," Cryan said. "Today, I can name 20."
