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 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….
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers leveled harsh claims against DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart on Wednesday, saying they had no confidence in her ability to lead the agency. The sharp words come a day after lawmakers learned that DEA agents received lax punishment for attending “sex parties” in Columbia, the Huffington…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The suspected leader of the Juarez drug cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, was captured in the northern Mexican city of Torreon, Mexican officials announced Thursday, according to the Associated Press. The wire service reported that Carrillo Fuentes, 51, is believed to have headed the cartel founded by his late brother, Amado Carrillo…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The DEA is cracking down on narcotic painkiller abuse by restricting how patients can receive the medication, the Wall Street Journal reports. The DEA plans to reclassify hydrocodone combination drugs like Vicodin, a move that will require people to receive a new prescription for painkillers every 90 days. Currently, painkiller users can…
By Ryan Reilly Huffington Post WASHINGTON — The leadership of the Drug Enforcement Administration comes under fire in a report issued by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General on the near-death of a college student left in a holding cell for five days. The review finds that DEA leadership “violated Department of Justice…
