DEA/DRUGS/LEGAL: “In September 2016, local Rep. Judy Chu met with then-head of the Drug Enforcement Agency Chuck Rosenberg.
She was reassured by Rosenberg that recently passed legislation related to the oversight of how opioids are distributed, which she cosponsored, ‘did not interfere with the DEA’s ability to successfully stop bad actors.’
Now, Chu has written to two powerful congressional committees demanding an investigation after the release of a report from the Washington Post and ’60 Minutes’ detailing how this little-noticed piece of legislation took away the DEA’s ability to prevent hundreds of millions of painkillers from entering the black market.
She is the second lawmaker to call for an investigation into the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in spring 2016. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who was also a cosponsor, sent a letter to two congressional committees asking for the law to be reviewed to figure out if it should be altered or repealed.”
-Benjamin Oreskes, “Congresswoman demands investigation into law that stymied DEA on opioid enforcement,” The Los Angeles Times online, Oct. 19, 2017 07:55am