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Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Wednesday that the Justice Department will award $12 million in grants to help law enforcement agencies combat the opioid crisis and create a new office in the Appalachian region to crack down on illicit drug trafficking. Sessions is also ordering all U.S. attorneys' offices to designate an opioid coordinator to work with prosecutors and other federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement officials to coordinate opioid prosecutions. (Hellman, 11/29)

Two Republican lawmakers are proposing to restrict the prescriptions of opioids for first-time users, calling it a necessary step to combat abuse. A new bill introduced Wednesday by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Renacci (R-Ohio) would limit a patient's first opioid prescription for acute pain to seven days, except in cases of traumatic injury, chronic conditions, cancer care, end-of-life care, palliative care, or based on a physician’s recommendation. (Hellmann, 11/29)

The U.S. opioid crisis that’s sweeping through America’s heartland has hit farmers harder than the wider rural population. Almost three-quarters of U.S. farmers and farm workers say they have been directly affected by opioid dependence, either from taking an illegal dose or dealing with a habit themselves, or by knowing someone who has used. That compares with about 45 percent for the rural population as a whole, according to a poll commissioned by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union, the two biggest U.S. farmer groups. (Bjerga, 11/30)

Two-thirds of all Wisconsin counties — 48 of 72 — have now filed lawsuits in federal district court in Milwaukee against the makers of prescription opioid painkillers. (Behm, 11/29)