Ramstad Seen as Possible Obama Drug Czar

As President-elect Barack Obama's transition team gathers steam, word is leaking out that recently retired Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) -- a strong advocate for addiction treatment and recovery -- could be in the running for the position of Obama's "drug czar."

Drugs -- and the addiction issue in general -- got very little attention during the recently concluded presidential campaign, but now that Obama has won, his duties prior to taking office on Jan. 20 include selecting candidates for some of the top positions for his forthcoming administration. And although the job of director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has seemed almost invisible in recent years, in fact the "drug czar" is officially part of the president's Cabinet -- technically on par with the Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State.

No candidates for the drug czar's job have been officially announced by the team running Obama's search for a successor to current ONDCP head John Walters; the search is reportedly being led by Christopher Putala, Washington, D.C., consultant and former senior Senate Judiciary Committee staffer for then-Chairman (and now vice-president elect) Joseph Biden (D-Del.); and Donald Vereen of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, a former NIH researcher and deputy ONDCP director between 1998 and 2001 under President George H.W. Bush.

The Capitol Hill newsmagazine Politico first reported that Ramstad was being considered as a possible head of ONDCP in the Obama administration. Dean Peterson, a Ramstad spokesperson, told Politico it was "gratifying to hear Jim's name being mentioned for drug czar"; however, a Ramstad spokesperson contacted by Join Together would not comment on whether the nine-term Congressman was in the running for the job.

More Reputed Candidates

Other potential candidates for drug czar floating around the blogosphere and Washington have included Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, drug-policy researcher and author Mark A. Kleiman of the UCLA School of Public Affairs, current Center for Substance Abuse Treatment director H. Wesley Clark, and Tom McLellan, Ph.D., director of the Treatment Research Institute.

However, Bratton told L.A.'s City News Service that he's not interested in the job, stating, "That is not something I am seeking, it's not something I have been approached about." Likewise, Kleiman recently posted the following to his blog: "I am not, have not been, and could not be under consideration for Drug Czar. Not only have I taken positions that make me politically radioactive, I'd also be absolutely terrible at actually doing the job, which is 10 percent thinker, 30 percent manager, and 60 percent schmoozer."

Ramstad co-founded the bipartisan Congressional Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-Mass.) and has been an outspoken advocate for addiction treatment service, candid about his own recovery from alcoholism, and a driving force behind the recent passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

Eric Goplerud, Ph.D., director of Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Programs and a research professor at the George Washington University Department of Health Policy, said that the next drug czar needs to be someone who takes a public-health approach to drug issues, not a military one. "Ramstad would definitely have that orientation," he said. "He's inspiring; he has a broad vision of how substance use related to the issues of health and mental health in this country, and he has the credibility to work with Capitol Hill and the administration. He would be a strong leader."

However, word that Ramstad might be under consideration as Obama's drug czar has not sat well with some drug-policy reform groups. "While we applaud Rep. Ramstad for his courageous and steady support for expanding drug treatment access and improving addiction awareness, and honor his own personal and very public triumph over addiction, we have strong reservations about his candidacy for the drug-czar position," states a sign-on letter being circulated by the congressional office of the Drug Policy Alliance. "In his 28 years in the U.S. House, Rep. Ramstad has consistently opposed policies that seek to reduce drug-related harm and create common ground on polarizing issues."

The letter portrays Ramstad as being out of step with some of Obama's stated positions on drug policy, noting that the GOP Congressman voted to permanently ban federal funding for needle-exchange programs and to block federal efforts to prevent the arrest of medical-marijuana users in states where such use is legal. "We urge you to nominate for drug czar someone with a public-health background, who is committed to reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and other infectious diseases, open to systematic drug-policy reform, and able to show strong leadership on the issues you believe in," the DPF letter said.

The Qualities of a Future Leader

Peter Reuter, professor of the School of Public Policy and Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland and founder of RAND's Drug Policy Research Center, sees two key qualification for an effective drug czar under Obama: stature and substantive balance.

"The office has lacked prestige since William Bennett; though General McCaffrey was a visible public figure he did not have much standing in the senior levels of government," Reuter told Join Together. "If the new director is to be taken seriously by cabinet agencies, he or she must be sufficiently well known and respected to get phone calls returned. Without that, the director reverts to a minor budget and operational coordinator."

Added Reuter: "The major challenge for the new director is to tame the enforcement machine, initially at the federal level but then at the state level. This requires someone whose credentials will not be challenged by law enforcement but who has enough knowledge of the rest of the field to make a good case for what can be accomplished through other programs."

Goplerud said that the Whole Health Campaign, a coalition of more than 70 addiction and mental-health organizations, has been working with the Obama transition team to ensure that treatment and prevention issues are considered as appointments are made throughout the government, from the Department of Labor (which will play a role in parity implementation as well as drug-free workplace issues) to the Interior Department (which includes the Department of Indian Affairs) and the Medicaid program, which directly impacts addiction treatment for thousands of Americans.

Goplerud also had praise for Obama's nomination of former Sen. Tom Daschle as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, noting Daschle's past work on the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome. "We will have a healthcare reform czar who knows our issues," he said.

Other announced nominations, such as Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, Eric Holder as Attorney General, and even Joseph Biden as Vice President have received some criticism from drug-policy reform groups, who view the trio as "pretty aggressive drug warriors," in the words of columnist Radley Balko. Similar complaints have been aired regarding ONDCP transition team leader Donald Vereen, called a "a completely unreconstructed drug warrior" by one respected source who spoke to Join Together but did not wish to be identified by name.