USA TODAY International Edition
Drug czar nominee could be in limbo after opioids report
Marino pushed law that stymied DEA
WASHINGTON President Trump declined to say Monday whether he had confidence in his nominee to be the nation’s next drug czar, saying he would “look into” a report that his candidate led a successful effort by the drug industry to undermine the ability of law enforcement officials to stop suspicious shipments of opioids flooding American communities. The Washington Post/60 Minutes reported Sunday that Rep. Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican and Trump’s drug czar nominee, has deep ties to the drug industry and pushed a bill in Congress making it harder for the Drug Enforcement Agency to halt drug shipments that posed an “imminent danger” to the community.
“We’re going to look into the report,” Trump said in an impromptu news conference Monday. “We’re going to take it very seriously.”
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin called on Trump to withdraw Marino’s nomination, saying the congressman is “unfit” for the job and cannot be trusted to confront the opioid epidemic.
“We need someone leading the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy who believes we must protect our people, not the pharmaceutical industry,” the West Virginia senator said a letter.
Marino’s spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Manchin’s letter. That was not the only fallout from the Post/60 Minutes probe.
Sen. Claire McCaskill said Monday she would try to repeal the 2016 law, written by Marino and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Before that law went into effect, the DEA had been using that authority to crack down on drug distribution companies that were sending millions of opioids to what law enforcement believed were corrupt doctors and Internet pharmacies.
The 2016 law made it “virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies,” the Post probe found, citing internal Justice Department documents and an independent assessment by an administrative law judge.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, RTenn., one of the co-sponsors of the 2016 law, also suggested she would be open to revisiting it.
Marino’s nomination was controversial even before the Post/60
Minutes exposé. Treatment advocates have highlighted Marino’s push to lock up low-level drug users against their will, until they agree to treatment.