PORTLAND, Maine (AP) Attorney General Jeff Sessions says a boost in federal law enforcement will reduce addiction and overdose deaths plaguing Maine.

Sessions was joined by Uttam Dhillon, the new acting director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. attorney for Maine, Halsey Frank, on Friday in Portland as about 200 demonstrators gathered outside.

Sessions is in New England to talk about opioid addiction and overdose deaths.

He said Friday that about 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016, roughly the population of Portland, Maine’s largest city.

Sessions says that the drug crisis is a “top priority” for the administration and that together “we can break this vicious cycle of drug abuse, addiction and overdose” that has devastated families.