A key commission tasked with tackling the state's growing drug abuse problem is deciding how it will spend more than $3 million in new funding included in the state budget.
The Governor's Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Recovery has $6.7 million to spend over the biennium, double what it had in the last budget. At a Friday morning meeting, members of the commission will talk about how to spend the new money in the state's fight against heroin and prescription drug abuse. More than 320 people died in New Hampshire from drug-related overdoses in 2014 and the state is on pace to match or exceed that number this year.
Earlier this year, lawmakers passed a bill expanding access to the overdose reversal drug naloxone, commonly known as Narcan.