CINCINNATI -- One of six specialized Drug Enforcement Administration teams specifically targeting opioids will be coming to Cincinnati, according to a Friday news release from the DEA.
"At a time when overdose deaths are at catastrophic levels, the DEA's top priority is addressing the opioid epidemic and pursuing the criminal organizations that distribute their poison to our neighborhoods," DEA Acting Administrator Robert W. Patterson said in Friday's new release. "These teams will enhance DEA's ability to combat trafficking in heroin, fentanyl, and fentanyl analogues and the violence associated with drug trafficking."
The five sister teams will be dispatched to Cleveland; New Bedford, Massachusetts; Charleston, West Virginia; Raleigh, North Carolina and Long Island, New York. According to the release, these six locations were chosen based on their rates of opioid mortality, level of opioid seizures and the potential they presented for intervention to make a longterm impact.
