The Nashua Police Department, through a partnership and donation from Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, has a new tool to keep investigators safe from accidental drug exposures and to quickly and accurately identify illegal compound drugs in the field.
A particular concern is fentanyl, which on its own poses a serious risk to police as well as being a component in supercharged doses of heroin.
"It’s toxic to the touch and gets in through your pores," said Sgt. Brian Kenney, who works in the department’s narcotics intelligence division. "There’s been issues nationwide with police officers becoming exposed through their pores and through the air and
actually having to seek medical treatment because of that."
Police commonly use field test kits, which require direct handling of suspected material. Multiple kits, specific to a particular drug, are necessary to confirm what the found material may be. The tests are disposable, and the testing is time-consuming.
To that end, the department can now identify what a substance is by using a handheld device manufactured by a Delaware company called BWTEK.
"It actually uses a laser that can shoot straight through a plastic bag so we can identify a substance without having to touch it," Kenney said.
At a press conference Wednesday, Nashua police and representatives from the medical center presented the device and demonstrated its capabilities.
With a touch of a button, the device can analyze a substance and, based on a database of information, confirm what is inside.
Mark Hastings, director of the hospital’s emergency medical department, said the spark for the plan came from an opioid summit last year where he heard presentations from the police department.
Hastings and Scott Cote, a vice president at the hospital, later attended a pitch at the department from TacticID. They realized they "should be helping out here. This is not just a drug testing, too; it’s keeping law enforcement guys safe," Hastings said.
"The technology has been out since the ’70s," said BWTEK global market manager Gregory Giuntini. "It’s called Raman spectroscopy. It’s used in labs now across the world. It’s a recognized technology for identification of all sorts of materials."
Over the decades, it has been refined and made more portable for use in identifying and analyzing hazardous materials – explosives as well as drugs.
The laser, he explained, "excites the molecules in the sample and sends back a reading that’s basically a molecular fingerprint. Every substance has a very specific fingerprint."
"This is a very expensive piece of equipment we use to keep our officers safe," said Deputy Chief Michael Carignan. "To come up with $20,000 is pretty difficult for a municipal agency. To have somebody with the resources that Southern New Hampshire has to offer – for us, that’s huge."
"The hospital will have the device at its disposal, as well, so if something is found on a patient, they can instantly analyze what it may be and properly handle it so no one gets hurt," Kenney said.
Through recent testing in Nashua, Kenney said the new device has been identifying substances specific to New England, which provides the added benefit of enabling the device manufacturer to update its own drug libraries.
It’s unknown at this point how much the department is saving without having to purchase the disposable test kits. But, Kenney said, "with multiple drug arrests a day, we’re using an awful lot of field test kits – an awful lot."