The Police Department still sits on more than 700 drug evidence items seized since the early 1990s, despite a town request this summer to destroy nearly half the stockpile — a delay due in part to the ongoing state police drug scandal and a lack of clarity by the state about the drug destruction process.
The backlog, which is unusual because many police departments regularly destroy unneeded evidence, has accumulated since at least 1992, according to public records obtained by the Telegram & Gazette.