Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced $12 million in grants and a new Drug Enforcement Administration division overseeing the Appalachian region to help law enforcement officials combat illicit drugs, especially prescription opioids.

At a news conference Wednesday morning, Sessions also said he has directed his U.S. attorneys to designate an opioid coordinator to work with prosecutors and other federal, state, trial and local law enforcement officials to better coordinate opioid prosecutions.

"Today, we are facing the deadliest drug crisis in American history," Sessions said. "Based on preliminary data, at least 64,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses last year. That would be the highest drug overdose death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history. For Americans under the age of 50, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death.

"This crisis is driven primarily by opioids - prescription pain medications, heroin and synthetic drugs like fentanyl," Sessions said.

The DEA will establish its new division, the Louisville Field Division, on Jan. 1 to unify its drug trafficking investigations. The division will include Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, will have about 90 special agents and 130 task force officers, and focus on illicit drug trafficking in the Appalachian Mountains.

"This change will produce more effective investigations on heroin, fentanyl and prescription opioid trafficking, all of which have a significant impact on the region," said acting DEA administrator Robert Patterson.

Kellyanne Conway, one of President Donald Trump's top advisers, has been tasked with overseeing White House initiatives to combat opioid abuse, Sessions said. She attended the announcement Wednesday, standing off to the side.

"The president has made this a top priority for his administration - including every senior official and Cabinet member - as her presence here today can attest," Sessions said, calling Conway "exceedingly talented."

"She understands messaging," he added.

About $17 million from the Community Oriented Policing Services Office will be awarded to law enforcement agencies in states with high per capita levels of primary treatment admissions for heroin and other opioids. Another $5 million will go to state agencies that have seized precursor chemicals, finished methamphetamine, laboratories and laboratory dumps.

Sessions's announcement was the latest action taken by the Justice Department to try to stem increasing opioid-related overdose deaths. Earlier this month, the department announced that anyone who possesses, imports, distributes or manufactures a fentanyl-related substance can be criminally prosecuted.

Overseas chemical manufacturers try to evade regulatory controls by using analogues - or structural variants - of fentanyl that are not listed under the controlled-substance law.

In October, federal prosecutors charged two Chinese nationals who sold fentanyl to Americans over the Internet in a large international conspiracy case. The Justice Department alleged that one of the men ran websites selling fentanyl directly to U.S. customers and also operated at least two chemical plants in China that were capable of producing tons of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

"Most fentanyl enters the United States from China," Sessions said Wednesday. "I have raised it with a recent Chinese delegation, Deputy Attorney General [Rod J.] Rosenstein has raised it, and President Trump was emphatic on the subject during his recent trip to China. We need more support."

In a memo to his U.S. attorneys, Sessions said that by Dec. 15, each must designate an opioid coordinator who is responsible for opioid, heroin and fentanyl cases and for developing a strategy to combat the drug epidemic.

"The ongoing opioid epidemic is destroying the lives of countless Americans," Sessions wrote.