US Drug Enforcement Administration director Michele Leonhart is to step down next month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced April 21. Holder issued requisite praise of Leonhart, stating that she "led this distinguished agency with honor." But the circumstances of her departure are far from honorable. While Holder certainly wasn't so indiscrete as to mention it, Leonhart's resignation follows an internal Justice Department report last month finding that DEA agents attended parties with prostitutes paid for by local drug traffickers in Colombia. Media reports indicate that Leonhart, who has headed the DEA since 2007, has been under mounting pressure to resign since testifying to a congressional oversight committee about the scandal last week. (CBS, BBC News)
We can hope that Leonhart's ouster (which it appears to be in all but name) signals a turn-around in White House policy. Leonhart last year testified before Congress against the cannabis legalization initiatives in Washington state and Colorado. The DEA faced protests over raids of medical dispensaries on her watch. It also faced litigation over human rights abuses on her watch. Needless to say, Leonhart was intransigent on petitions to reschedule cannabis.
"I encourage the president to use this as an opportunity to fill this important role with someone who understands the outdated federal approach to marijuana isn’t working," Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) told the New York Times upon Holder's announcement. "The American public has moved on. Most now feel marijuana should be legalized."
Cross-post to High Times
Graphic by DEA
Comments
Federal judge: DEA above the law
US District Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston ruled that the DEA does not owe the owner of a small Texas trucking company anything—not even the cost of repairing the bullet holes to a tractor-trailer truck that the agency used without his permission for a 2011 sting that resulted in the execution-style murder of the truck’s driver, who was secretly working as a government informant. Trucking company owner Craig Patty said that the truck was used and damaged in a sting against Mexican traffickers without his permission and that his family lived in extreme fear they would face retaliation from the cartel, even though they had no idea what the government was doing. (Houston Chronicle, April 28)
In another case of DEA impunity, an internal agency review concluded in March that the six DEA agents involved in the notorious Daniel Chong case should receive only reprimands and short suspensions. The Justice Department responded by demanding reforms to prevent such abuses from re-occurring, but is not calling for greater justice in the case. (LAT, May 5)