Kellyanne Conway will lead White House initiatives against the opioid overdose epidemic, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Wednesday, according to BuzzFeed News.
"The president has made this a top priority for his administration," Sessions said at a news conference. "We will not slow down for one day or even for one instant. With one American dying of a drug overdose every nine minutes, enforcing our drug laws is more important than ever."
A majority of the 64,000 overdose-related deaths in 2016 were due to opioids. Sessions announced three new initiatives to "turn the tide," in the epidemic, including:
- More than $12 million in grants to state and local law enforcement agencies across America to take illicit drugs off the streets.
- A restructuring of the DEA, including the establishment of a field office in Louisville with about 90 special agents and 130 task force officers with a focus on West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
- The creation of an opioid coordinator at every U.S. Attorney's office to help determine which cases to take federal.
According to a reporter with CBS, the White House said Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, is not the president's "opioids czar," and this role is "just part of her policy portfolio, as it has been for several months now."
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