[420 Girl]

In this morning's inbox: I assume that you know the process by which the short lists for the new heads of ONDCP, DEA, NIDA, etc. will be formulated.

Do you know who will be compiling those lists, i.e. who has the task of planning for the formulation of drug policy in this administration?

This morning, few outside the campaign know yet the answers to these questions.

Drug policy and the drug policy chiefs are low priority. There is no urgency to fill these positions from the public or political realm.

A transition team will be appointed. There are likely to be two aspects of this.

First, there is likely to be a public transition process that may have some number of experts appointed to "study" the issue, and make recommendations. This is to give the concerned groups a focus for their concerns, and to demonstrate that no issue is being ignored. Clinton did this. Concerned groups of all kinds are completing their transition documents right now. A coalition of advocates of criminal justice reform is finishing their agenda catalogue and will post it here soon. www.2009transition.org

The second process is the real process which is likely to ignore the public process. The new White House personnel team will consult with political constituencies that are important to Obama, which will include appropriate key Members of Congress, and perhaps funders, and consider these appointments in a very large matrix that involves balancing paying back political debts, appeasing political pressure groups, finding a leadership team for the various agencies, and giving the best appearance of choosing "qualified" persons.

Selecting appointees is a higher priority than making any policy decisions. First, it is easier for the media to count up "unfilled" positions and blame the new Administration for being "slow" to fill vacancies. Second, because few policy changes are without political costs, most changes will require extensive preparation of the public. The possible exceptions might be medical marijuana and sterile syringe exchange which have large public support.

The three agencies and the agency chiefs are likely to be considered by three different teams: White House team, Justice department team, and a HHS team. For each of these teams, drug policy and drug agency heads are going to be lower profile, lower priority appointments.

For the Administration and the nation, the economic appointments and the national security appointments are going to be the top priority. Then there are a host of other issues and the agencies that deal with them that are much higher priority than drug policy.

Various groups in Washington and around the country will start trying to influence these decisions by assembling their own lists of suggested appointees and forwarding them to the press and to persons who know people close to or inside the new Administration.

I would not be looking for an announcement of a nominee to be the ONDCP director until the Spring. DEA can operate with an acting director, likely to be a career DEA manager, for a long time, as can NIDA. The decision of DEA Administrator won't come before a new Attorney General has time to orient himself or herself.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...ppointees.html