LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is targeting opioid abuse in Appalachia by establishing a new field office in Kentucky to oversee a region ravaged by overdose deaths.
The new Louisville field office will have a special agent in charge to oversee investigations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. It will improve efforts in the Appalachian mountain region and streamline drug trafficking investigations under a single special agent in charge, acting DEA Administrator Robert Patterson said during a news conference Wednesday with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
D. Christopher Evans, an associate agent in charge in the DEA’s Detroit field office, will lead the new Louisville office.
Sessions said it’s the first restructuring of DEA field offices since 1998, when the agency created an El Paso, Texas, field office.
“Today we are facing the worst drug crisis in American history, with one American dying of a drug overdose every nine minutes,” Sessions said during the news conference in Washington. The Department of Justice also announced $12 million in grants for state and local law enforcement to combat heroin and methamphetamine dealers.