New Hampshire leads effort to view overdoses as crime scenes
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FILE - In this March 4, 2016, file photo, New Hampshire Attorney General Joe Foster speaks as the House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations holds a hearing Friday in Concord, N.H. Foster, whose term will end March 31, 2017, launched a training program to teach police officers and prosecutors how to handle drug overdoses that is becoming a model for other states grappling with the opioid crisis. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File) (The Associated Press)
A New Hampshire training program that teaches police officers and prosecutors how to treat drug overdoses as crime scenes is emerging as a model for other states grappling with the opioid crisis.
Outgoing Attorney General Joe Foster launched the training last summer so that officers could learn how to trace bad batches of drugs to the source, with the goal of charging dealers who cause overdoses with "death resulting," a previously little-used charge that carries up to life in prison.
That training now serves as a blueprint for other attorneys general nationwide. The National Association of Attorneys General brought several New Hampshire officials to Washington in early March to draft training materials for wider use, and Foster himself has become a go-to person on the issue.