Sessions Announces New Taskforce to Tackle Fentanyl

Ten counties to get zero tolerance prosecution for fentanyl offenses

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday a surge in federal prosecutors to combat the boom in fentanyl trafficking and associated deaths.

"We are going to arrest, prosecute, and convict fentanyl dealers and we are going to put them in jail," Sessions said.

The initiative, operation Synthetic Opioid Surge (S.O.S.), will see federal prosecutors targeting synthetic opioid peddling as part of an effort to cut down on the deadliest drugs in America.

Drug overdoses—of which there were some 64,000 fatal instances in 2016—are the leading cause of injury death in the United States, and have single-handedly driven down the life expectancy of white Americans. In his speech, Sessions said the data for 2017 suggest we are not out of the woods yet.

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