New Hampshire is one of five states featured in a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank that is documenting spending on the opioid crisis.
The report is a comprehensive accounting of federal dollars being allocated toward the epidemic, including where and how the money is being spent.
It urges policy makers to provide stable funding in the coming years, and to allow states flexibility in how that money is used.
"We came to New Hampshire in January to talk about the opioid epidemic and we heard a lot about methamphetamine abuse,” said Anand Parekh, the center’s chief medical advisor. “It speaks to the issue that oftentimes states have to deal with multiple drug abuse epidemics at the same time. Funding therefore has to be flexible."
Coordination among different funding sources is also key, he said, to maximize the spending’s impact.
"We are finally beginning to get the resources that communities, that families, that states need in order to fight this epidemic,” U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said at a release event for the report Tuesday. She said she’ll continue to fight for additional resources going forward.
Read more about the report’s New Hampshire-specific conclusions here:
