A new federal grant will help the Vermont State Police in efforts to confront Vermont’s opiate addiction crisis.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced Monday that the Vermont State Police is one of six recipients nationwide of a grant administered through a new Anti-Heroin Task Force program.
Under the program, the Vermont Drug Task Force will receive $1.4 million that will go toward bolstering law enforcement in regions of the state with high treatment admission rates for opiates.
Leahy created the program, which totals $6 million, after hearing testimony on drug abuse in Rutland in 2014.
“Heroin and opioid addiction in Vermont and across the country has strained communities and devastated families,” Leahy said in a statement Monday. “This is a crisis that will take all of us, from our neighbors, to decision makers in state and local governments and in Washington, to confront and break this corrosive cycle of addiction.”
The state police will use the grant to fund six positions with the Vermont Drug Task Force, an inter-agency group focused on opiate and other drugs in Vermont. The money will fund five trooper positions and one analyst for two years, as well as pay for basic equipment, such as radios, according to Capt. Rick Hopkins of the task force.
“This will further our ability to fight the ongoing opiate epidemic plaguing our state and allow our law enforcement officers to dismantle the supply chains that are coming into Vermont,” Col. Matt Birmingham of the Vermont State Police said in a statement. “It is with the help of grants like this that we can continue our coordinated effort of prevention and treatment as we try to eliminate the opiate crisis affecting our communities.”
