By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com DEA agents who left a 23-year-old college student in a holding cell for five days without food or water for allegedly possessing marijuana received a slap on the wrist. The agents, who said they forgot about Daniel Chong, were reprimanded or received short suspensions, even though the illegally detained student nearly…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com DEA Agent Joseph Piersante, who was shot and wounded by enemy gun fire while on a counter-terrorism and narcotics mission in Afghanistan in 2011, became the first DEA agent to receive the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom. The The Defense of Freedom Medal is the civilian equivalent…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A judge has ruled that the DEA is not required to compensate a Texas trucking company for damaging a tractor trailer that the agency used during a wild 2011 sting without permission. The Washington Post reports that the tractor trailer was riddled with bullets after the sting ended in the execution-style…
By Bill Piper Huffington Post Bill Piper is the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. The resignation of the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Michele Leonhart, comes as no surprise to those of us working to reform the agency. The DEA is a bloated, wasteful, scandal-ridden bureaucracy charged with the…
Charles Lutz is a retired DEA Senior Executive. This column was written for ticklethewire.com By Charles Lutz Things in Washington are seldom what they seem. The media has portrayed the forced retirement of DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart as the result of agents in Colombia holding parties with prostitutes paid for by Drug Cartels, and the…
By The Daily Iowan Editorial Board The DEA chief, Michele Leonhart, is stepping down amid heated congressional hearings into her agency’s scandals involving sex parties and compromised information leaked to Colombian drug lords. An internal report documented that prostitutes, sex parties, and undercover apartments were paid for by government money from 2001 to 2005 in…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The resignation of DEA Director Michele Leonhart is a big victory for proponents of medical and even recreational marijuana. Leonhart was steadfastly – some say stubbornly – opposed to pot use and even ignored President Obama’s assertion that federal agencies should respect the marijuana laws of each state. “The real reason we’re…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com DEA Director Michele Leonhart, who has come under sharp criticism over agents’ misconduct, has announced her retirement. Attorney General Eric Holder said Leonhart, who served as the agency’s top administrator since 2010, told him of her plans Tuesday, The USA Today reports. She was the first women to serve as director….
