|
 Uttam Dhillon, who most recently served as deputy White House
counsel, was named as the DEA's acting administrator at a time when
the agency is devoting much of its attention to grappling with a
national opioid epidemic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42,000
people died from opioid overdoses in 2016. U.S. President Donald
Trump declared the crisis a public health emergency in October.
"The work of the Drug Enforcement Administration is critical to
fighting this crisis, and President Trump and I are committed to
continuing to give it the strong leadership it deserves," Attorney
General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.
Dhillon replaces Robert Patterson, a 30-year agency veteran who
became the DEA's acting head in October following the departure of
Chuck Rosenberg, who himself had led the DEA in an acting, rather
than Senate-confirmed, capacity since 2015.
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Patterson in an email to employees on June 18 said he "realized that
the administrator of the DEA needs to decide and address priorities
for years into the future -- something which has become increasingly
challenging in an acting capacity."
Dhillon earlier in his career served under President George W. Bust
as director of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of
Counternarcotics Enforcement. Before that, he served as an associate
deputy attorney general in the Justice Department.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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