Feds, state prosecutors eye stiffer sentences for drug dealers who cause OD deaths

CONCORD, N.H. - United States Attorney Emily Gray Rice and New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster announced on Monday the formation of an inter-office team of experienced, career prosecutors targeting the prosecution of opiate overdose deaths in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire has the third-highest rate of per capita drug overdose deaths nationwide. Four hundred and thirty-three individuals died from drug overdoses in New Hampshire in 2015. Two hundred and eighty-three 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 prosecutorial resources focused 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.

Rice added the new task force would beef up prosecution of those who profit at the expense of others.

"Our joint team effort to prosecute those who are criminally responsible for overdose deaths is a critical element of the multi-faceted law enforcement approach needed to combat the drug epidemic in our state, she 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.