When President Barack Obama signed the “21st Century Cures Act” into law last year, New Hampshire officials anticipated getting $10 million over the next biennium. That number has dropped to $6 million.
Tym Rurke, who chairs the Governor’s Commission on Drugs and Alcohol, says although the funding was supposed to be based on per capita overdose deaths – that wasn’t the case.
“For reasons I do not know – that didn’t happen. So, when the Cures Act was passed the funding was indeed doled out by the number of overdose deaths, so we are not number three or two on that because we are a much smaller state,” Rourke said.
With overdose deaths expected to reach nearly 480 for 2016, New Hampshire has the second highest overdose deaths per capita in the country. California, which received the most money, has a per-capita rate that’s nearly 2/3’s lower than New Hampshire’s.
