2nd NEADCP Board Interview: Chief Justice Tina Nadeau

Tina Nadeau

Chief Justice

New Hampshire Superior Court

         When Tina Nadeau was first appointed to the New Hampshire bench in 2004, she wasted no time launching a conversation about the need for drug courts at the county level. Defendants, she observed, had no access to treatment either while they were in prison or on probation.

         Assigned then to the drug court in Rockingham County, Nadeau, as she remembers it, “got people [from the county] together, got two weeks of training in Oklahoma, got an implementation grant, and we were up and running” with a drug court.

         In the four years since she was named chief justice of the Superior Court, the number of county-based drug courts has increased from two to six.

        

         Still, Nadeau is not resting on any laurels. Citing the need for yet more treatment and other services for drug abusers, she is hoping there will be a commitment at the state level to support drug courts. In a rural state like New Hampshire, she faces considerable challenges, “the single biggest” being the lack of transportation for those needing services, especially in the north country, she says.

         “Not being able to get them where they need to be is a huge roadblock,” she acknowledges, but not an insurmountable one. Donations of old cars, vans, even bicycles and the consolidation of probation, treatment and a county drug court all in one location would help greatly, she notes.

         A strong supporter of medication-assisted treatment, Nadeau finds that the more she sees of the impact of opioid addiction, the more she sees the need for MAT. “We don’t tell diabetics to try harder without insulin,” she says, adding, “It’s basically medical malpractice if we don’t provide that assistance.”

         Overall, Nadeau seems optimistic about the future for drug courts. Media attention to the problem of addiction and the dissemination of evidence-based information about the effectiveness of drug courts are contributing to that feeling of optimism. And New Hampshire’s distinction as the site of the first statewide presidential primary also gives her cause for hope.

         The Granite State, she says, “is in a great position to put this issue front and center, to have an effect on the national conversation … to put drug courts in front of prospective presidential candidates.”