The Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee last Friday approved spending $500,000 in federal grants to kick off the “No Safe Experience” campaign to warn the public about the growing sale of fake pills that look legitimate but contain deadly fentanyl or methamphetamine. Here, Gov. Chris Sununu announced the strategy at a Concord Hospital press conference last month.
The Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee last Friday approved spending $500,000 in federal grants to kick off the “No Safe Experience” campaign to warn the public about the growing sale of fake pills that look legitimate but contain deadly fentanyl or methamphetamine. Here, Gov. Chris Sununu announced the strategy at a Concord Hospital press conference last month.
CONCORD — Changing how to deliver life-saving Naloxone played a big part in New Hampshire being the only state in the nation with a decline in drug overdose deaths since 2017, according to the state’s chief medical officer.
The Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee on Friday approved using $250,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act grants to dispense Naloxone kits to the nine locations across the state that operate the Doorways program, which treats substance use addiction.
Naloxone kits can actually reverse the effects of an overdose from heroin or fentanyl.
Dr. Jonathan Ballard said the state first had issued a “standing order” for anyone to get Naloxone from a pharmacy without a prescription.
This helped make it easier to get the overdose reversal drug, but Ballard said it wasn’t turning the tide on opioid deaths.
The pivotal next move in recent years was to give these kits to the programs that work on the streets so they can be directly given to addicts or their families, he said.
“We saw in the American Medical Response reports out of Nashua and Manchester that instead of the Naloxone being dispensed out of the ambulance, it had already been given out by a bystander,” Ballard said. “This made all the difference.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Gary Daniels, R-Milford, appreciated Ballard’s report on scientific research done in New Hampshire and three other states with declining opioid deaths over the past year.
“We give out all this money for Naloxone but then what’s the impact? We need to hear this,” Daniels said.
There were 425 drug overdose deaths in New Hampshire last year.
The fiscal panel approved spending another $500,000 to support recommendations of the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs that include recovery services for youths up to age 24 who use stimulants.
In a related action, this budget oversight committee also endorsed the $500,500, new public awareness campaign called “No Safe Experience” that Gov. Chris Sununu had announced last month.
The new strategy came as the Drug Enforcement Administration has reported criminal drug networks are mass-producing fake pills and falsely marketing them as legitimate when in fact they contain deadly fentanyl.
In the U.S., law enforcement seized nine million pills in 2021 and DEA lab testing revealed that two out of every five pills contained fentanyl, said Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn.
These fake pills are often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms, which makes them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors, Quinn said.
“A significant number of high school and college students purchase Adderall and Xanax from dark web drug markets and/or through social media which market deadly versions of these drugs tainted with fentanyl and/or methamphetamine,” Quinn said.
The campaign will include public service announcements produced for radio, television and social media as well as a new website that will produce posters, pamphlets and other materials.
Quinn said there will also be a public education component aimed at middle and high school students which will also be available to private schools and to parents who home school their children.
