Will Gates had everything. He was a full scholarship student in microbiology at University of Vermont, he was a championship speed skier. He had a close family and many friends.

And he died in 2009 of a heroin overdose. His death sent his family into a tailspin.

“There is no hell on Earth like losing a child,” Skip Gates, his father, said. “And the only thing I could do is try to change the future for some other family so they don’t go through the same hell.”

Gates appeared at Lincoln Academy on Thursday, Feb. 25, to show a film that includes him, his surviving son Sam, and recovering heroin addicts, including the young man that sold the heroin to his son Will. The film, “The Opiate Effect,” gives the viewer some startling statistics.

“Eighty percent of people who are currently addicted to opiates began with a legal prescription that was available to them,” Gates says. “Sixty percent of all drug overdose deaths involved pharmaceutical opiates.”

In 1999, drug overdose deaths owing to opiate pharmaceuticals were a little less than 5,000 per year in the United States. In 2010, the overdose numbers had risen to over 16,500 per year. In 2014, the number was more alarming — 18,893 deaths because of pharmaceuticals, and another 10,000 or so to heroin. Many pharmaceutical opioid abusers become heroin abusers because heroin has become, ironically, cheaper and easier to get.

According to Gates and state agencies, Maine has a significant opioid problem, and now heroin epidemic. Until recently, there was very little heroin in Maine, but changes to drug laws that restricted pharmaceutical opioids had the unintended consequence of creating a heroin market in the state, and out of state dealers arrived to fill the vacuum. With few options for treatment, and overcrowded jails in many counties, opioid victims are increasingly left to their own devices, with horrendous results. In Maine, one in 12 babies are born addicted to opiates that their mothers took while pregnant.

People seeking assistance for heroin or pharmaceutical addiction tripled in the five years between 2009 and 2014, and deaths from heroin overdoses increased eight-fold over the same time period, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In Lincoln County, Mid Coast Hospital has a center for addiction services, run by Eric Haram, at a location at 20 Bristol Road. Haram said that over the last 10 years, the number of people the center treats went from 35 in any given week to 225. His program provides counseling, and assistance in getting to and from the center, via a network of “angels” who pick people up, make sure they get to 12-step programs, and get help dealing with the various life crises that people struggling with addiction often have to deal with, including intersection with law enforcement, the courts, and probation workers.

Sen. Chris Johnson (D-Somerville) is working to expand an effort begun in Scarborough to Lincoln County. The program is called “Operation HOPE (Heroin Opiate Prevention Effort).” In Scarborough, it is run by the police department. The program is modeled after a similar program in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and connects addicts to treatment facilities. In Maine, with few treatment facilities, many of the addicts are being sent out of state, Johnson said.

Many of them have no insurance, and are relying on abstinence only programs, which nearly all health organizations believe is not the best system.  The Centers for Disease Control, the Maine DHHS, and the World Health Organization say that the statistics for a recovering addict are much better if there is medication assistance - methadone or suboxone - in addition to a 12 step sobriety program or talk therapy.

However, because the addicts often have no insurance, there is no way for the state to pay for medical care, so most of the out of state programs tend to be 12-step programs, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous. The receiving programs offer grant-funded scholarships to the recovering addicts, Johnson said.

Johnson is planning a meeting with potential “angels” on March 7 at the CLC YMCA in studio #1 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Anyone who believes they might have an interest is welcome to attend. No commitment is necessary at this time.

Still, Gates said the best option is to empower young people and others to avoid opiates in the first place. Groups are springing up, created by young people, to make social drug-free spaces. “They don’t feel like they’re the only ones not taking drugs, or feel they have to do what their friends are doing,” he said.

He said that enforcement, readily available treatment options of all kinds, and education must work hand in hand.

“If we can save just one child ... and one family ... it’s all worth it,” he said.