Pubdate: Sat, 17 Apr 2010
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2010 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: Don Sapatkin, Inquirer Staff Writer

DEPUTY U.S. DRUG CZAR FROM PENN QUITTING WHITE HOUSE

A. Thomas McLellan, a former University of Pennsylvania psychologist
whose appointment last year as the top federal official on addiction
treatment was seen as signaling a major shift in drug policy, is
planning to step down in July.

Friends and colleagues said Friday that McLellan, who is known as a
straight-talking, get-it-done kind of scientist, likes everything
about the job except bureaucracy and politics. Unfortunately, his
title is deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

They said he had not had any significant policy disagreements with the
Obama administration, and expected increased attention to treatment to
continue.

His appointment as deputy to the nation's so-called drug czar
energized a field that has been repeatedly disappointed by
administrations of both parties that emphasized law enforcement at the
expense of treatment and prevention.

"We will have a great hole," said Sue Rusche, president and CEO of
National Families in Action, an organization that seeks to prevent
drug abuse among children by promoting science-based policies. "He is
one of our most enlightened people who understands the complexity" of
drug addiction.

McLellan, a leading scientist in the field of drug addiction,
cofounded the Treatment Research Center in Philadelphia in 1992 with
the goal of moving proven treatment practices from the laboratory to
the clinic. He has been a major force in drug treatment for decades.

People close to him said that when he was recruited by Vice President
Biden in early 2009, he committed to one year.

"The last time I talked with the vice president they were prevailing
upon him to stay," said Charles P. O'Brien, a mentor and director of
the Center for Studies of Addiction at the University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine. "I am going to offer him a job this afternoon."

He is not likely to accept it, at least not immediately, said his
wife, Deni Carise, who took a job last fall as chief clinical officer
for New York-based Phoenix House, a national operator of treatment
centers. She and her husband have been meeting on weekends in
Philadelphia at their home in the Bella Vista section.

"He wants to boat around for a few months," she said.

The death of his 30-year-old son from a combination of antianxiety
medication and alcohol poisoning two years ago was a factor in
McLellan's decision to accept the D.C. job.

"He thought it would help him make sense of that loss," Carise said,
but the separation from friends and family "made that loss worse."

McLellan, 62, was attending an American Society of Addiction Medicine
conference in San Francisco and did not return calls requesting
comment Friday. His decision, which had been rumored for weeks, was
first reported by the newsletter Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly.

"There's no deep dark secret here - I'm just ill-suited to government
work," McLellan said in an interview Thursday with editor Alison Knopf.

Although McLellan is credited with raising the level of sophistication
on treatment issues in the drug czar's office, some have accused the
Obama administration of saying all the right things but not backing
them up with action or money. Release of the National Drug Control
Strategy, the blueprint for how all federal agencies deal with drug
issues, has been repeatedly delayed, leaving few details by which to
judge.

Politics is constantly threatening to intrude on decisions about
addiction policy that should be based on science, said Ethan
Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance,
which promotes alternatives to the "war on drugs."

"McLellan's departure is not reassuring," said Nadelmann, who had
bluntly questioned the administration's commitment at a congressional
hearing Wednesday.

Gil Kerlikowske, the drug czar and McLellan's boss, who also
testified, has publicly dismissed the term war on drugs. In an
interview Friday, he said that treatment would be emphasized and that
he believed strongly in the policies advocated by McLellan.

"I want to do everything I can to hold on to him as long as I possibly
can," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake