A long trail of corruption cases, oversight failures, and drug-war contradictions has left the DEA with a credibility problem, even as it continues to influence how cannabis is scheduled, researched, and regulated in the United States.
Four decades of corruption scandals and an expanding global mission raise a fundamental question: Is the DEA fighting drugs, or protecting an outdated model of drug enforcement?
The Drug Enforcement Administration wants the public to believe a simple story: heroic agents battling cartels, protecting American families from deadly substances, and making communities safer. It is a compelling narrative, one the agency has sold to Congress, the public, and presidents of both parties for more than half a century.
But if we look closely at the DEA’s actual record, a different picture emerges. One where some agents have laundered millions of dollars alongside the traffickers they were supposed to target. One where corruption investigations touching dozens of people resulted in just a single government conviction. One where overseas operations have repeatedly raised questions about mission creep and weak oversight. And one where, despite vast resources and decades of authority, the overdose crisis reached catastrophic levels and remains severe even as recent data shows some improvement.
Most troubling of all for cannabis readers, this same agency continues to exert decisive influence over marijuana policy in the United States, shaping how weed is scheduled, researched, and regulated. An institution whose credibility has been repeatedly damaged by corruption scandals and weak accountability still helps decide what Americans can legally consume, prescribe, or study.
The Pattern That Won’t Go Away
Let’s start with what is documented, not what is merely suspected.
In 2021, former DEA special agent José Irizarry was sentenced to more than twelve years in federal prison for a sprawling corruption scheme. Operating primarily overseas, Irizarry admitted to laundering approximately $9 million through sham enforcement operations, using the money for luxury cars, a mansion in Cartagena, Tiffany jewelry, and what he described to the Associated Press as a decade of “luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events and frat house-style debauchery.”
Irizarry’s operation, known as “Team America,” was not portrayed by him as a solo act. In interviews before entering prison, he told the AP that dozens of federal agents, prosecutors, informants, and cartel members were involved in or around the scheme, selecting cities for laundering operations “mostly for party purposes or to coincide with Real Madrid soccer or Rafael Nadal tennis matches.”
Here is what makes Irizarry’s case extraordinary: he talked. At length. To the FBI, to federal prosecutors, and to reporters. He provided names, dates, and details. Federal investigators reportedly questioned up to two dozen current and former DEA agents and prosecutors based on his disclosures.
And yet, despite this sprawling investigation, Irizarry remains the only government employee convicted in connection with the Team America scheme. Judge Charlene Honeywell, who sentenced him in Tampa, appeared to share the public’s confusion, pointing out that other agents, corrupted by what she called the “allure of easy money,” needed to be investigated, and adding that Irizarry was “the one who got caught, but it is apparent to this court that there are others.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. The DEA issued a statement calling Irizarry “a criminal who violated his oath.”
Then came the internal discipline that barely registered in the headlines: at least a dozen agents and officials were reportedly disciplined, forced into retirement, or pushed out. A St. Louis division chief allegedly used DEA funds to rent a New York apartment for a romantic partner. An Atlanta supervisor resigned after lying to FBI investigators. Special Agent Danielle Dreyer was fired in late 2022 for what internal records described as “outlandish behavior” at a DEA party in Cartagena involving drug use and sexual misconduct.
That Cartagena incident had wider ripples. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Darden, who attended the gathering, later withdrew from consideration for a federal prosecutor nomination after scrutiny from the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.
And Cartagena, it turns out, has its own history with the DEA.
Sex Parties and Impunity
In 2015, a Department of Justice Inspector General report revealed that DEA agents stationed in Colombia had participated in “sex parties” with sex workers hired by drug cartels, the very organizations they were supposed to be investigating. The parties took place over several years in government-leased quarters, with a host-country police officer helping arrange the events.
According to the IG report, agents’ laptops, BlackBerry devices, and other government equipment were present at these gatherings, creating what the report described as “potential security risks” and exposing agents to “extortion, blackmail, or coercion.”
The penalties were suspensions ranging from two to ten days.
Then-DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, who faced intense congressional questioning over the scandal, retired weeks later. Some agents received bonuses and awards despite being under investigation, a detail that emerged in a follow-up IG report that same year. Representative Jason Chaffetz called it “astounding that employees who should have been prosecuted, fired, or at a minimum, severely disciplined for their misconduct, were instead given undeserved promotions and bonuses.”
This scandal did not appear out of nowhere.
A Long Record of Misconduct
In the 1980s and 1990s, DEA agents in New York were convicted for stealing cash and drugs from evidence lockers and reselling seized narcotics. In California, federal prosecutors secured convictions against DEA-affiliated officers who protected traffickers in exchange for bribes.
The deeper problem is not that every allegation has been proved in court. It is that the agency’s history shows a recurring pattern of corruption, weak oversight, and institutional tolerance for misconduct that would destroy the credibility of most other regulators.
The Unwinnable War
What makes Irizarry’s confession particularly damaging is not just the corruption he described. It is his explanation for why it happened.
“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this,” he told the Associated Press. “There’s so much dope leaving Colombia. And there’s so much money. We know we’re not making a difference.”
“The drug war is a game,” he continued. “It was a very fun game that we were playing.”
The numbers make his cynicism harder to dismiss. Recent CDC provisional data predicts 71,542 overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in October 2025, down 17.1% from the previous year. That decline matters. So does the fact that the country is still enduring an overdose toll that remains historically devastating, with synthetic opioids continuing to dominate the crisis.
Former federal prosecutor Bonnie Klapper, who worked on narcotics cases, told the Associated Press that oversight of DEA money laundering operations had been virtually nonexistent. “In the vast majority of these operations, nobody is watching,” she said. “In the Irizarry operation, nobody cared how much money they were laundering. Nobody cared that they weren’t making any cases. Nobody was minding the house. There were no controls.”
Mission Creep Abroad
The DEA’s overseas operations have also raised repeated questions about mission creep, particularly in politically sensitive theaters like Venezuela, where financial stings, interdiction efforts, and broader geopolitical objectives can start to blur together. That does not mean every operation is illegitimate. It does mean the public has reason to ask where narcotics enforcement ends and foreign-policy maneuvering begins.
Cannabis in the Crosshairs
This brings us back to weed.
For more than fifty years, the DEA has classified cannabis alongside heroin as a Schedule I substance, meaning no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse under federal law. That classification now sits in obvious tension with reality. Forty states, three territories and the District of Columbia allow medical cannabis, while 24 states, two territories and D.C. allow adult-use.
In 2022, President Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the DEA to review marijuana’s scheduling. HHS recommended moving cannabis to Schedule III, acknowledging it has “currently accepted medical use” and a lower abuse potential than Schedule I substances. The DEA proposed the change in May 2024, but the process became mired in procedural battles and remains unresolved.
In December 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to expedite rescheduling, but the issue is not only whether rescheduling is eventually completed. It is also why an agency with the DEA’s record should have such a central role in shaping cannabis policy in the first place.
Consider what rescheduling doesn’t do: it doesn’t legalize weed for recreational or medical use. It doesn’t resolve conflicts between state and federal law. It doesn’t answer the deeper question of whether cannabis belongs in the Controlled Substances Act at all.
What it does do is remove Section 280E of the tax code, which currently prevents cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary expenses like rent and payroll. That change could dramatically improve the economics of legal operators. But the broader issue here is not just tax relief. It is legitimacy.
An agency with a long record of documented corruption cases, weak discipline, and repeated oversight failures still helps determine access to a plant that millions of Americans use legally under state law. It helps shape which researchers can study cannabis and under what conditions. It influences public messaging and policy framing. And it retains a gatekeeping role that makes less and less sense in a country where cannabis policy is increasingly being decided by voters, legislatures, doctors, and markets rather than narcotics agents.
The DEA’s own history shows what can happen when enforcement agencies operate in moral-panic mode with inadequate accountability: corruption spreads, civil liberties narrow, and public-health goals become harder, not easier, to achieve.
Institutional Inertia vs. Democratic Accountability
In response to the Irizarry scandal, the DOJ commissioned an “external review” of DEA foreign operations across 69 countries. Completed in March 2023 at a cost of $1.4 million, the report mentioned Irizarry once, in a single paragraph with a footnote acknowledging an ongoing grand jury investigation.
Bonnie Klapper called the review “underwhelming,” noting it failed to recommend structural changes that would prevent another Irizarry. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram pledged to implement all seventeen recommendations. Public evidence of major structural reform remains thin.
Senator Chuck Grassley publicly criticized DOJ and DEA leadership in April 2023 for stonewalling document requests related to overseas operations and corruption allegations. A House Judiciary Committee hearing in July 2023 nominally addressed DEA oversight but largely sidestepped the Team America scandal.
That is the recurring pattern: scandals emerge, officials express concern, internal reviews recommend modest reforms, and the agency continues operating with broad authority and preserved policy influence. There is no public proof of some grand unified cover-up. There is, however, a great deal of evidence of institutional inertia.
Continuing to let the DEA dominate cannabis policy makes about as much sense as letting the tobacco industry write smoking regulations.
The Path Forward
Cannabis regulation should be shaped by public-health experts, addiction specialists, economists, and democratic institutions, not primarily by an enforcement agency whose credibility has been repeatedly damaged by misconduct and weak oversight.
There are practical steps available. Transfer greater authority over cannabis scheduling and research to the FDA and HHS, agencies whose core mission is health rather than policing. Establish independent oversight of DEA foreign operations with real enforcement power, not just inspector general reports that fade from the headlines. Require the DEA to demonstrate measurable public-health outcomes, not just seizure totals and arrest statistics. And most importantly, start a serious national conversation about whether the drug-war framework itself has become part of the problem rather than the solution.
DEA defenders will say these are isolated incidents, that most agents are dedicated professionals, and that the agency still does critical work against dangerous trafficking networks. That may be partly true. But “isolated incidents” spanning four decades, multiple administrations, overseas operations, repeated corruption scandals, and minimal accountability constitute a pattern that deserves scrutiny.
When an institution charged with enforcing drug laws repeatedly proves unable or unwilling to police itself, it loses any convincing claim to moral authority over what substances Americans can use, research, or prescribe.
For additional context on the DEA’s role in the ongoing rescheduling process and what Schedule III classification would mean for cannabis businesses and research, visit the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at Moritz College of Law.
Editor’s note: This piece draws on public reporting, official records, and linked source material. Where allegations remain disputed or unadjudicated, that is stated in the text.
This article is an opinion piece from an external contributor. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of High Times. The article has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Photo: Staff Sgt. Karen Person, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
