State forensic lab struggles to get through heroin backlog

[Silent_Bob]

http://www.wcvb.com/news/state-forensic-lab-struggles-to-get-through-heroin-backlog/35759504

CONCORD, N.H. —The New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory is seeing more heroin and fentanyl cases than it can process.

The director of the lab said one-third of the cases it analyzes includes at least one of the drugs, and the lab is getting about 200 more cases each month than it can process.

Director Tim Pifer said he dealt with the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and '90s, followed by pharmaceutical drug abuse issues, but nothing compares to this epidemic. With each sample taking one to two hours to analyze, dealing with all the cases is a tall task.

Pifer said criminalists at the lab are working 12-hour days and scrambling to meet the demand, something that's proving to be an impossible task. He said there's a backlog of about 3,800 cases.

The lab gets about 750 new cases each month, but it can only analyze about 500 per month.

"The result is, each month, the backlog continues to grow," Pifer said.

He said suspected heroin cases surpass all other submissions the lab receives, except for marijuana.

"In my 26 years of being in the forensic laboratory and being involved in the drug aspect, this is by far the worst I have ever seen," he said.

Cases involving fentanyl, which is now commonly mixed with heroin and is up to 50 percent more potent, are also rising. Pifer said that in one year, fentanyl has gone from 2 percent of the samples taken in to 10 percent.

Even for chemists, knowing exactly what they are looking at isn't always easy.

"We can't tell by looking at them, so we know the users can't tell, and sometimes even the dealers don't know," he said.

Some help is on the way. A $60,000 grant to go toward overtime will allow for more hours and more work to be done.

"It will speed up the process of prosecuting drug dealers in the state of New Hampshire," Pifer said. "We can provide the results in a more timely fashion to the various courts across the state."

The already long days will get longer, and weekend work is possible, but Pifer said it's worth it if it helps increase the quality of life in the state.

There is also now money in the state budget for a seventh full-time criminalist.

[Free libertarian]

 
  Damn you Kaiser Wilhelm !!! 

[Jim Johnson]

I thought it was Keyser Soze.

[Tom Sawyer]

He said suspected heroin cases surpass all other submissions the lab receives, except for marijuana.

Well there's the problem right there dumbasses.Take pot out of the equation.

[WithoutAPaddle]

I can't figure out how anyone can make money selling heroin in Rochester if everyone in that city is a dealer.  But then, I couldn't figure out how anyone could make money selling cocaine in Northampton, Massachusetts for the same reason, but they did.

[Jim Johnson]

They sell it for less than they pay for it.... but they make it up in volume.
The important thing is to keep the inventory moving so it looks good on the quarterlies.

[Tom Sawyer]

They sell it for less than they pay for it.... but they make it up in volume.
The important thing is to keep the inventory moving so it looks good on the quarterlies.

I see a bunch of junkies in bad suits filling out the quarterly reports.