Tom state Police Forensic lab apparently seeing more and more heroin and fentanyl cases than ever before. Jennifer onethird of the cases it now analyzes includes one of these drugs or combination of the two. Heather hamel is here with details on how the lab is getting about 200 more cases a month than it can process. Reporter the director of the lab says he dealt with the crack cocaine crisis of the 80s and nines, followed by the pharmaceutical drug abuse, but nothing compares to this epidemic. With each sample taking one to two hours to analyze, dealing with all these cases is a tall criminalists at the state police lab are pulling 12hour days and scrambling to meet the demand, and the heroin and Opioid Crisis isnt making it easy. These folders represent their backlog of approximately 3800 cases. They get about 750 new cases a month, but can only analyze about 500 in that time frame. The result is each mob the backlog continues to grow. Reporter they say the heroin cases are now the s
Amy hello, welcome, october 10th, im amy coveno. First, Kevin Skarupa joins us in the Weather Center. Kevin it looks like a cool start to the Holiday Weekend with a warmer finish. We start off this morning with temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Some extra clouds up north this morning otherwise looks like we start the day fairly quiet with any early clouds giving way to sunshine. What will be the coolest and most crisp autumnlike day that we will have for the Holiday Weekend. Temperatures starting in the 40s and then jumping into the 50s, maybe near 60 and youll also have a northwesterly breeze that will add a bite to the air through the afternoon. All flannels are a go and from there, were talking about warmer temperatures for the second of the third days of the holiday forecast. Well talk about that coming up. Amy Bipartisan Team of legislators is proposing a new bill that could put a drug court in every county in the state. More than 300 people died of Drug Overdoses in 2014 and the s