New DEA opioid efforts announced
Drug-fighting tools to include grants, new DEA division.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced $12 million in grants and a new Drug Enforcement Administration division overseeing the Appalachian region to help law enforcement officials combat illicit drugs, especially prescription opioids.
At a news conference Wednesday morning, Sessions also said he has directed his U.S. attorneys to designate an opioid coordinator to work with prosecutors and other federal, state, trial and local law enforcement officials to better coordinate opioid prosecutions.
“Today, we are facing the deadliest drug crisis in American history,” Sessions said. “Based on preliminary data, at least 64,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses last year. That would be the highest drug overdose death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history. For Americans under the age of 50, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death.
“This crisis is driven primarily by opioids — prescription pain medications, heroin and synthetic drugs like fentanyl,” Sessions said.
The DEA will establish its new division, the Louisville Field Division, on Jan. 1 to unify its drug trafficking investigations. The division will include Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, will have about 90 special agents and 130 task force officers, and focus on illicit drug trafficking in the Appalachian Mountains.
“This change will produce more effective investigations on heroin, fentanyl and prescription opioid trafficking, all of which have a significant impact on the region,” said acting DEA administrator Robert Patterson.
Kellyanne Conway has been tasked with overseeing White House initiatives to combat opioid abuse, Sessions said.
About $17 million from the Community Oriented Policing Services Office will be awarded to law enforcement agencies in states with high per capita levels of primary treatment admissions for heroin and other opioids. Another $5 million will go to state agencies that have seized precursor chemicals, finished methamphetamine, and laboratories.
In a memo to his U.S. attorneys, Sessions said that by Dec. 15, each must designate an opioid coordinator who is responsible for opioid, heroin and fentanyl cases and for developing a strategy to combat the drug epidemic.