Obama Administration Finally Moves to Confirm Leonhart DEA Head

The Head of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, will be officially confirmed today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leonhart was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the administrator after replacing Karen Tandy in 2007 and has been the acting administrator for the last three years. Opposition from pro-marijuana groups like NORML and Marijuana Policy Project and Hemp activists were not enough to keep President Obama from re-nominating her as the administrator back in February.

Her nomination was put on a back burner for the last several months as it languished in committee so the administration could deal with other business, most notably addressing a backlog of judicial nominations and preparing for the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. But the time is here and to the dismay of medical marijuana and cannabis law reform groups her position will be solidified on Wednesday. Leonhart was a special agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles office from 1998 to 2004 and the DEA deputy administrator from 2003 to 2007. She presided over hundreds of raids on medical marijuana patients and dispensaries during the years before the October 2009 Holder announcement. Even after the Holder announcement last year to stop persecuting patients and providers whose actions are in clear compliance with existing state laws, raids have continued, although in smaller numbers. There have been more than 30 raids of medical marijuana providers since the Holder announcement under her watch.

Americans for Safe Access have sent out an alert to their members denouncing her reign as the acting head of the DEA citing the paramilitary-style raids designed to undermine safe access and the implementation of state medical marijuana programs. Leonhart has also overturned a DEA administrative law judge’s decision to issue a license to UMass-Amherst Professor Lyle Craker to grow marijuana for FDA-approved research. Vote Hemp is also opposing Leonharts confirmation because she has continued to block hemp production in the US and has failed for three years running now to respond to several applications from North Dakota-licensed farmers to grow hemp. They are accusing her of maintaining the ridiculous notion that hemp is marijuana.

Many of the cannabis law reform groups have organized phone call-in campaigns to try and derail her nomination, and Americans for Safe Access has provided a list of questions for the committee to ask her tomorrow at her confirmation hearing. One of the questions is how raiding medical marijuana providers was an efficient use of DEA resources, another is when the DEA might get around to deciding the status of a 2002 petition to reschedule marijuana. But it seems as though the Judiciary Committee isn’t interested in blocking her nomination and she is expected to sail through the process.