CONCORD, NH – U.S. Attorney Emily Gray Rice and New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster on Monday announced the formation of an inter-office team of prosecutors who will be tasked with targeting drug dealers for prosecution in opiate overdose deaths in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire has the third-highest rate of per capita drug overdose deaths nationwide, with 433 individuals dead in 2015 from drug overdoses; 283 of these deaths resulted from overdoses of fentanyl, either alone or in combination with other drugs.
The purpose of the team is to increase and coordinate the resources needed to focus on overdose deaths.
“This effort builds on the initiative started by my office at the end of 2015 to treat drug overdose deaths as crime scenes, and to bring to justice those who have sold drugs to overdose victims,” Foster said.
The inter-office team includes all of the drug prosecutors in both the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Hampshire.
