Connecticut's top law enforcement officials were in Torrington Tuesday to consider a bold approach to addressing the opioid epidemic.

Courthouses like Torrington's have been hit especially hard by opioid cases. A task force, which met for the first time Tuesday, has been formed to work out the feasibility of creating a special court solely for opioid cases.

The state already has something called Pathways in Torrington and Bridgeport, which takes drug users and diverts them into a treatment program. Out of almost 1,000 participants so far, 78 percent have not returned to jail.

The task force aims to have some recommendations by the end of the year.

A big concern is cost, regardless of what the task force recommends. In the past two years, the court system's budget has been slashed by $66 million.

Connecticut would be the second state to implement opioid courts. New York is also experimenting with them.