Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Press Release: House Oversight Committee Condemns DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart

Contact: Darby Beck                                                                       For Immediate Release:
darby.beck@leap.cc                                                                        Wednesday April 15, 2015
415.823.5496

HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CONDEMNS DEA ADMIN’S TRACK RECORD OF INCOMPETENCE

Official Bipartisan Statement Declares “No Confidence” in DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart

Washington D.C. – Today, twenty two members of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a statement of ‘No Confidence” in Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart for continued failed leadership during numerous scandals and direct conflicts with the Obama Administration. The bipartisan statement was issued in the wake of congressional hearings investigating a sex scandal involving DEA agents in South America who purchased sex workers with American tax dollars.

“There’s simply no excuse for the outrageous behavior of the DEA’s so-called leadership,” said Maj. Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a criminal justice group working to end the drug war. “Leonhart just helps us add to the list of reasons of why we need to rethink our entire approach to drug policy.”

The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General currently has six open investigations into scandals perpetrated by the DEA involving murder and torture, covert data collection of Americans used for evidence fabrication, and a massacre in Honduras. In addition, Leonhart has repeatedly flaunted administration policy and opposed policies based on scientific evidence and best practices.

LEAP is committed to ending decades of failed policy that have created underground markets and gang violence, fostered corruption and racism, and largely ignored the public health crisis of addiction. The war on drugs has cost more than one trillion dollars, yielded only disastrous outcomes, and ultimately diverted the penal system’s attention away from more important crimes.




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