After Introducing Bipartisan Legislation, Shaheen Meets with New Hampshire Guard to Discuss Counterdrug Program

**Legislation would improve long-term, strategic drug interdiction efforts in New Hampshire and across the country**

**Shaheen hears about the Guard’s important work helping local law enforcement fight the heroin and opioid pandemic** 

(Concord, NH)— Today in Concord, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) met with New Hampshire National Guard Counterdrug leadership, the Governor’s Advisor on Addiction and Behavioral Health James Vara and leadership from New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) to discuss the Guard’s important work helping local law enforcement fight the heroin and opioid pandemic. The New Hampshire National Guard Counterdrug Program provides local law enforcement with highly-trained analysts with military specific skillsets to support their counter-narcotic efforts, allowing law enforcement agencies to devote more resources to investigative and undercover tasks.

Last week, Shaheen and Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) introduced bipartisan legislation that would extend the availability of funding for the National Guard Counterdrug Program from one to three years. This funding change will give the Guard the certainty it needs to better support long-term, drug interdiction efforts in New Hampshire and across the country.

“Traffickers expressly target New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, where law enforcement is often spread too thin and lacks resources to respond effectively,” said Shaheen after her meeting. “During our discussion today, I had the opportunity to hear about the Guard’s invaluable work supporting our law enforcement as they battle to keep drugs off our streets, as well as the challenges they face. This important partnership has helped shutdown drug trafficking networks and stop drugs from coming into our state. Congress needs to be doing more to help this program continue and succeed. That’s why I introduced legislation to make a small change to the National Guard’s budget that will allow it to make big improvements to this counterdrug program. Our law enforcement agencies need all the help they can get to battle the heroin and opioid pandemic, and it’s important that we support these programs that are working.”

From 2011 through 2015, New Hampshire law enforcement agencies supported by the National Guard Counterdrug Program have reported well over $100 million in seizures of drugs, cash, property, and weapons related to criminal narcotics cases worked on by Counterdrug Analysts.

The New Hampshire National Guard currently supports the Drug Enforcement Agency, NH Attorney General’s Drug Task Force, NH State Police/Narcotics Investigation Unit, and the Manchester Police Department.