Nearly from its creation in 1970, under the Controlled Substance Act, the Drug Enforcement Agency has seen itself as the front line, and shock troops, of the "war on drugs," launched by Richard Nixon, in the next year. As you can see from the plot showing nearly a 10 fold increase in the total number of U.S. prisoners after this, the DEA measures success in its mission largely by incarcerating as many people as possible. The number of federal prisoners incarcerated for drug offenses is just under 98,000. The total number of federal and state prisoners is 2.2 million, about half in prison for drug related crimes.
The United States has the largest prison population of any country in the world, the largest percentage of our population in prison, the most women prisoners of any country in the world, and half of our prisoners are in prison for drug offenses, raising the question, "are Americans truly the most depraved, immoral, bunch of criminals, of the lowest character and integrity of any and every country in the world, or are we putting way too many of our otherwise innocent citizens in jail, for an out-of-control anti-drug ideology which needs to be reversed?"
In this context, Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of The Drug Policy Alliance, and Rick Doblin, Executive Director of The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychadelic Studies, write a scathing indictment of The DEA: Four Decades of Impeding and Rejecting Science.
Unfortunately, the Controlled Substance Act also put the DEA in charge of approving all medical and scientific research on illegal drugs which these authors argue the DEA has obstructed at every opportunity - in what they suggest is leaving the "fox in charge of the hen house."
Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, the DEA's powers include not just the ability to enforce federal drug laws, but the authority to schedule drugs and license facilities for the production and use of scheduled drugs in federally-approved research. The DEA is statutorily required to make its determinations based on scientific data. There is no indication in the legislative record that the CSA intended for drug classification to be a one-way ratchet, with only tighter controls ever envisioned. Nor was there any indication that the DEA's decision-making process was intended to be an entirely political process.
Despite substantial evidence confirming marijuana's medical benefits, the DEA has opposed any efforts to reform federal policy to reflect this. At the same time, the DEA has essentially blocked the FDA drug development route for marijuana by making it extremely difficult for researchers to obtain marijuana for clinical trials.
In 2007, one of the DEA's own Administrative Law Judge's ruled that the DEA monopoly as the only source marijuana for scientific research was harmful to the public interest and should end, yet, DEA Director Michele Leonhart intervened and overruled the ruling.
Many have speculated the reason the DEA has so vigorously blocked medical and scientific research into the medical benefits of marijuana is that the DEA knows that scientists would find it to be beneficial, the DEA would be required to take it off its Schedule I list and the DEA would lose its enormous budget for fighting its use.
Marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug, along with heroin, and LSD, meaning it is extremely dangerous and has no legitimate use, an error of classification clear from the start. Yet for 40 years, the DEA has stalled, or fought, every attempt to reclassify marijuana based on a true scientific and medical assessment.
The DEA took 16 years to issue a final decision rejecting the first marijuana rescheduling petition, five years for the second, and nine years for the third. In two of the three cases, it took multiple lawsuits to force the agency to act.
Other DEA Administrative Law judges have ruled that neither marijuana nor MDMA (ecstasy) should be a Schedule I drug and should instead by a Schedule II drug regulated by the FDA. Again, totally ignoring the scientific evidence on which these decisions were made, Michele Leonhart overruled this finding.
DEA Administrative Law Judges are government officials charged with evaluating the evidence on rescheduling and other matters before the DEA and making recommendations based on that evidence to the DEA Administrator. In the cases of the scheduling of marijuana and MDMA, the judges determined that that they should be placed in Schedule II instead of Schedule I, where they would be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as prescription medicines, but still retain criminal sanctions for non-medical uses. However, agency administrators overruled their Administrative Law Judges' recommendations, substituting their own judgments and ignoring scientific evidence. The current DEA head, Michelle Leonhart, also rejected a DEA Administrative Law Judge ruling that the DEA end its unique and unjustifiable monopoly on the supply of research-grade marijuana available for federally-approved research.
I agree with the author's recommendation that the "responsibility for determining drug classification be totally removed from the DEA" and put instead in the National Academy of Sciences. Also, they recommend the DEA be ordered to end their monopoly as the only possible source for marijuana for research purposes.
The authors note that the DEA was established as a police and propaganda agency, so it imakes no sense to entrust them with decisions and responsibilities "involving science and medical practice," especially after considering the agency's long history of systemic abuse of its powers in this area.
I also agree with the author's call for a "top-to-bottom review of this rogue agency." .
President Obama can use his executive powers to reorganize his executive branch so Michele Leonhart has no staff, no budget, and no office. DEA functions can he spun off into the 15 other federal law enforcement agencies, which is too many anyway.
We need to ask that Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama to demand the immediate resignation of DEA Director Michele Leonhart.
Please sign the petition demanding her resignation, write the president (at the provided link) , take the poll, and write to your reps (at link.)
Thanks to Notreadytobenice for this link to the petition at www.change.org
Petitioning President Barack Obama - Fire Anti-Marijuana DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart!
Ask your Senators to protect medical marijuana from federal interference the way the U.S. House has done banning the DEA from using taxpayer money to interfere with medical marijuana laws.
Please use this site provided by the Drug Policy Alliance to send a message to you state Senators and your House Representative asking for them to: End the Federal Assault on Medical Marijuana
Just say no to DEA Director Michele Leonhart - the single worst government employee in the United States! Please do something today to help the 1 million of your brothers and sisters - fellow Americans who are rotting in jail because of ideologically based drug laws.
Let's not leave these poor folks behind on the battlefield of the war on American drug users. And for god's sake, let's beg President Obama and Eric Holder to order the DOJ and DEA to stop causing more casualties on this battlefield everyday. Or we may confirm what the rest of the world apparently already suspects - Americans are truly the most depraved people on the planet.
If President Obama and Eric Holder will not save us from ourselves, our only other hope may be that the International War Crimes Tribunal brings charges against us for committing war crimes and atrocities against our own people. (Snark alert!) Somehow we must bring this destructive daily carnage to an end.
6:34 PM PT: To get a better understanding of DEA Director's Michele Leonhart's unworthiness for employment in the U.S. Government please read some of the following:
Possible Group Names:
1. Abolish The DEA - Michele Leonhart Must Resign!
2. End The War on Drugs - DEA Director Michele Leonhart Must Resign!
3. Leanhart Must Go!