U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

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DEA Administrator Anne Milgram speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, April 14, 2023. The Biden administration’s push to reclassify marijuana as a less-dangerous drug is going forward without the support of the nation’s premier narcotics agency. Newly released government records show the Drug Enforcement Administration requested more information on supporting science to reclassify marijuana but the Justice Department decided to move ahead without the drug agency’s signoff — an unprecedented omission. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Top U.S. drug agency a notable holdout in Biden’s push to loosen federal marijuana restrictions

By Joshua Goodman and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

FILE - Marijuana plants are seen at a secured growing facility in Washington County, N.Y., May 12, 2023. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)

What marijuana reclassification means for the United States

By Jennifer Peltz and Lindsay Whitehurst - Associated Press

In this Friday, March 22, 2019, photo, a marijuana plant is visible at Compassionate Care Foundation's medical marijuana dispensary in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country. The DEA’s proposal still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) **FILE**

U.S. drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift, AP sources say

By Zeke Miller, Joshua Goodman, Jim Mustian and Lindsay Whitehurst - Associated Press

This photo provided by Penobscot County Sheriff's Office shows the seizure of 40 pounds of processed marijuana from a hidden grow operation by a Chinese citizen in Maine. Court documents detailing how Xisen Guo, a Chinese man came to Maine to transform a rural house into a high-tech, illicit grow operation were detailed in court files unsealed this week with the arrest of the alleged operator, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Penobscot County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Marijuana grow busted in Maine as feds investigate trend in 20 states

By David Sharp - Associated Press

Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni arrives at the Robert H. Jackson U.S. Court House for a hearing for an upcoming trial on drug and bribery charges, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. The veteran U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent is on trial in Buffalo, N.Y., on charges he took $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia to derail investigations and keep his childhood friends out of prison. (Derek Gee/The Buffalo News via AP)

‘Little dark secret’: DEA agent on trial accused of taking $250K in bribes from Mafia

Associated Press

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and Alex Saab stand in an embrace during an event marking the anniversary of the 1958 coup that overthrew dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 23, 2024. A Venezuelan businessman who helped hide almost $17 million in bribe payments by an ally of President Nicolas Maduro was sentenced to six months in prison Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, by a federal judge. (AP Photo/Jesus Vargas, File)

Venezuela bribery witness gets light sentence in wake of Biden’s pardoning of Maduro ally

By Joshua Goodman - Associated Press

Medical marijuana prescription vials are filled at a medical marijuana dispensary in Venice, Calif., May 14, 2013. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Nov. 27, 2023, warned pharmacies in Georgia to not dispense medical marijuana products despite state permission to become the first pharmacies nationwide to do so. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Federal agency quashes Georgia’s plan to let pharmacies sell medical marijuana

Associated Press

‘Greed and corruption’: Federal jury convicts veteran DEA agents in bribery conspiracy

By Jim Mustian and Joshua Goodman - Associated Press

In this image from video provided by C-SPAN, Louis Milione, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's deputy administrator, speaks during a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health in Washington on Dec. 2, 2021. Milione, the DEA’s second-in-command, quietly resigned in 2023, amid reporting by The Associated Press that he previously consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for a deluge of suspicious painkiller shipments and did similar work for the drugmaker that became the face of the opioid epidemic: Purdue Pharma. (C-SPAN via AP, File)

Revolving door: DEA’s No. 2 quits amid reports of previous consulting work for Big Pharma

By Joshua Goodman and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

Pharmaceutical orders fall into boxes as workers make sure the orders are complete at Morris and Dickson Co., in Shreveport, Wednesday, July 13, 2016. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug distributors to keep shipping opioid painkillers for nearly four years after a judge recommended in 2018 it lose its license for its “cavalier disregard” of thousands of suspicious orders fueling the opioid crisis. (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Shreveport Times via AP)

After yearslong delay, DEA revokes license of wholesale drug distributor over opioid crisis failures

By Joshua Goodman and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

In this image from video provided by C-SPAN, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram speaks during a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science in Washington on May 10, 2023. At center left behind Milgram is Louis Milione. After temporarily leaving the DEA in 2017, like dozens of colleagues in the agency's powerful-but-little-known Office of Diversion Control, Milione immediately went to work as a consultant for some of the same companies he had been tasked with regulating, including Morris & Dickson. He was named deputy administrator in 2021. On another front, a federal watchdog is investigating whether Milgram improperly awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to hire her past associates. (C-SPAN via AP)

Takeaways of AP report on DEA probe of drug distributor accused of fueling opioid epidemic

By Jim Mustian and Joshua Goodman - Associated Press

This frame grab from video, provided by the Mexican government, shows Ovidio Guzman Lopez being detained in Culiacan, Mexico, on Oct. 17, 2019. Ovidio's brothers, Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, are the lead defendants among 23 associates charged with running a criminal enterprise, fentanyl trafficking, among other things, in a New York indictment unsealed on April 14, 2023, in Manhattan, while Ovidio, alias “the Mouse,” is facing similar charges in another indictment in the same district. Another brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, is charged in the Northern District of Illinois. (CEPROPIE via AP) **FILE**

‘El Chapo’ sons send Mexico cartel’s cheap fentanyl into U.S.

By Christopher Sherman and Mark Stevenson - Associated Press

In this image from video provided by the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram speaks during a meeting with the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, April 27, 2023. During the session, lawmakers questioned Milgram over millions of dollars in no-bid contracts that are the subject of a watchdog probe into whether the agency improperly hired some of her past associates. (U.S. House Appropriations Committee via AP)

DEA chief grilled over probe into no-bid contracts, hiring

By Joshua Goodman and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, April 14, 2023. The Justice Department has charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

DEA chief faces probe into ‘swampy’ hires, no-bid contracts

By Joshua Goodman and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

A woman holds a poster showing Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab in a demonstration demanding his release, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. For more than two years, almost since the time of his arrest on U.S. warrant, Saab has insisted he is a Venezuelan diplomat targeted for his work helping the South American country circumvent American economic sanctions. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

U.S. judge rejects Maduro ally’s claim of diplomatic immunity

By Joshua Goodman - Associated Press

This photo obtained by The Associated Press shows Jose Irizarry in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2017. Irizarry accepts he’s the most corrupt agent in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration history, admitting he conspired with Colombian cartels to build a lavish lifestyle. But he says he won't take the rap alone, accusing long-trusted DEA colleagues of joining him in skimming millions from money laundering stings to fund a decade’s worth of high living. (AP Photo)

DEA’s most corrupt agent: Parties, sex amid ‘unwinnable war’

By Jim Mustian and Joshua Goodman - Associated Press

In this March 8, 1985, file photo, U.S. Marine Corps pallbearers carry the casket holding the body of slain U.S. Drug Enforcement agent Enrique Camarena Salazar after it arrived at North Island Naval Air Station, in San Diego. Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero was only ever sentenced in Mexico for the killing of Camarena and Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar in 1985, but his gang apparently killed as many as six U.S. citizens in the western city of Guadalajara around the same time. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File)

‘Forgotten’ U.S. victims of Mexican drug lord want justice

By Mark Stevenson - Associated Press

This June 13, 2016, file photo shows Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Florida. A current U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a former supervisor in the agency were indicted Friday, May 20, 2022 on federal charges accusing them of leaking confidential law enforcement information to defense lawyers in Florida in exchange for cash and gifts. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Veteran Miami DEA agents charged in bribery conspiracy

By Joshua Goodman and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

Lawyer for ex-DEA agent: Charges mired in anti-Italian bias

By JIM MUSTIAN - Associated Press

FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2020 file photo, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador attends the commemoration of his second anniversary in office at the National Palace in Mexico City. One day after Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced it was dropping the drug trafficking case against its former defense secretary, López Obrador said Friday, Jan. 15, 2020 that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had “fabricated” the accusations against retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

Mexico’s president continues to blast US investigation

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN - Associated Press