Indiana State Police receives $900,000 to fight drugs

The Indiana State Police received nearly $1 million to fight drugs, specifically methamphetamine and heroin, it was announced Thursday.

The Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS for short, announced the distribution of $12 million in grants to help state law enforcement agencies address meth production and abuse as well as the distribution of heroin, according to a news release.

With the announcement of the Anti-Methamphetamine Program and the Anti-Heroin Task Force, ISP received $950,000 "to address the significant increase in drug-related deaths in the state." The funds were part of two separate grants.

COPS awarded $5.7 million through the Anti-Heroin Task Force, giving $350,000 to ISP and dividing the rest among agencies in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Likewise, the Anti-Methamphetamine Program awarded more than $6.1 million, with $600,000 of that going to ISP and the remainder being divided among agencies in California, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Since 1995, COPS has distributed more than $14 billion in funding for community policing, providing grants to more than 13,000 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.

Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at (317) 444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.