Obama's nomination of Michele Leonhart to head the DEA is generating a lot of discussion about how horrible she is. In particular, this exchange from yesterday's Senate hearing is raising disturbing questions about what she'll do with the vast, unchecked drug war powers the President seeks to bestow upon her:
“I’m a big fan of the DEA,” said Sessions, before asking Leonhart point blank if she would fight medical marijuana legalization.
“I have seen what marijuana use has done to young people, I have seen the abuse, I have seen what it’s done to families. It’s bad,” Leonhart said. “If confirmed as administrator, we would continue to enforce the federal drug laws.”
“These legalization efforts sound good to people,” Sessions quipped. “They say, ‘We could just end the problem of drugs if we could just make it legal.’ But any country that’s tried that, Alaska and other places have tried it, have failed. It does not work,” Sessions said.
“We need people who are willing to say that. Are you willing to say that?” Sessions asked Leonhart.
“Yes, I’ve said that, senator. You’re absolutely correct [about] the social costs from drug abuse, especially from marijuana,” Leonhart said. “Legalizers say it will help the Mexican cartel situation; it won’t. It will allow states to balance budgets; it won’t. No one is looking [at] the social costs of legalizing drugs.” [Daily Caller]
Before everyone freaks out any further about the implications of Leonhart's pledge to enforce federal drug laws in states that have legalized medical marijuana, let's not forget that she's actually been running the DEA for three years. Federal raids on medical marijuana providers have decreased during her tenure and it's unlikely any of that will change just because the word "interim" gets removed from her title.
As I see it, the only significant aspect to the Leonhart story is Obama's horrendous decision to keep her around in the first place. She should've been tossed as a formality back in January '09 and replaced with some boring stooge we'd never heard of before. I have yet to hear a compelling theory as to why that didn’t happen, but my best guess is that there just isn't an abundance of impressive people interested in defending the dreadful deeds DEA does every day. The Obama Administration's confusing and disingenuous effort to soften the tone of the drug war rhetoric in Washington means they need a DEA boss who will generally keep their mouth shut. Leonhart's done a decent job in that department, and there might not be much else to the story.
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