Obama Appoints Temporary Drug Czar
Amidst the inauguration fanfare, we failed to notice that Obama immediately appointed ONDCP’s general counsel Ed Jurith to serve as acting director, i.e. drug czar. You can read Jurith’s bio here and my thoughts on him here.
This is interesting because it’s a definite improvement over Bush’s last minute appointment of Patrick Ward, another ONDCP insider, to run the office upon John Walters’s departure. Jurith is hardly a friend of reform on any issue I’m aware of, but his background is in law, while Ward has been directly and heavily involved in interdiction programs.
With Jurith being the preferable choice, I’m wondering if Obama actually did this for the right reasons as he looks for a permanent candidate to fill the position. That’s impossible to say, but it’s a small step in the right direction. Let’s hope for a bigger one soon.
This is interesting because it’s a definite improvement over Bush’s last minute appointment of Patrick Ward, another ONDCP insider, to run the office upon John Walters’s departure. Jurith is hardly a friend of reform on any issue I’m aware of, but his background is in law, while Ward has been directly and heavily involved in interdiction programs.
With Jurith being the preferable choice, I’m wondering if Obama actually did this for the right reasons as he looks for a permanent candidate to fill the position. That’s impossible to say, but it’s a small step in the right direction. Let’s hope for a bigger one soon.
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