Late yesterday, acting Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Robert Patterson, announced in an email to his staff that he would be stepping down in the next two weeks from his temporary position.
Patterson, who worked for the DEA for 30 years has been filling the position since October of 2017. Before him was another acting in the temporary position, Chuck Rosenberg. While Patterson does hold harsher views than Rosenberg regarding cannabis, Rosenberg stepped down after butting heads with Jeff Sessions and disagreeing with Trump’s comments regarding law enforcement conduct.
Patterson stepping down comes one month after making statements concerning cannabis and its effect on the opioid epidemic. He claimed he had no knowledge of scientific evidence of cannabis aiding in opioid addiction, despite the DEA having studies from the National Academies of Sciences on just that.
In his email Monday, Patterson said that he “realized that the administrator of the DEA needs to decide and address priorities for years into the future-something which was becoming increasingly challenging in an acting capacity.”
Since taking on the role of acting administrator, I have known that a permanent replacement would eventually be named. As such, I rook each day as a gift, and with that mentality, tried my best to keep the agency moving forward.”
-Robert Patterson, Acting Head of DEA, email to staff
At the moment, there is no replacement or recommendation for the position.
