The Drug Enforcement Administration will ramp up their activities over the next 45 days, said Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

On Wednesday, Mr. Sessions announced a surge in DEA activity that will focus on pharmacies and prescribers dispensing an unusual or disproportionate amount of drugs. The DEA will use data from the roughly 80 million transaction reports it collects every year from pharmaceutical companies and distributors as it ratchets up enforcement. That data includes distribution and inventory numbers to identify patterns and trends.

“Our country is in the midst of a drug abuse crisis, enabled and worsened by rampant drug trafficking and prescription drug diversion,” Mr. Sessions said. “This surge of resources by the Drug Enforcement Administration will help us make more arrests, secure more convictions and reduce the number of diverted or unnecessary prescription drugs causing addition and overdose.”

The surge is the latest Justice Department initiative targeting the opioid epidemic. On Monday, Mr. Sessions announced the formation of a team to tackle the darknet opioid sales.

Dubbed J-CODE or the Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement Team, the task force will include dozens more FBI agents, intelligence analysts and professionals.

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