On inauguration day, January 20, 2009, President Obama appointed Edward H. Jurith, the former general counsel of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to serve as the Office’s acting director.

The appointment is meant to be an interim post for Jurith, a career drug policy bureaucrat who worked as staff director and counsel of Rep. Charlie Rangel's House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. As a member of Rangel's staff, Jurith helped draft the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988, which created the White House ONDCP.

The ONDCP is a policymaking, not an enforcement, agency. Its mandate is "to establish policies, priorities and objectives for the Nation's drug control program."

Jurith held this position once before, when he was appointed by an exiting President Clinton. But he served just about a year before returning to his counsel position. It’s not yet clear what role President Obama expects of ONDCP or if Jurith is expected to be the permanent director. He has rarely been in the public eye and it remains to be seen what priority illegitimate online pharmacies will take in a new Obama ONDCP.

So why care at all?

Since the passage of the Ryan Haight Act in October 2008, the government has been given clear (and new) authority to investigate and prosecute illegitimate online pharmacies. Under President Bush, the ONDCP had not been actively involved in this issue until last year, when it teamed up with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and launched a $30 million advertising and awareness campaign to educate parents about the dangers of online drugs and their popularity among teens. You can check out the full January 24, 2008 press release here, but the campaign included TV, print and Web ads as well as tool kits to help community groups grapple with the problem..

The ONDCP study that launched last year's awareness campaign found that while overall teen drug use had gone down, prescription-drug abuse is higher than any other illicit-drug use and is extremely popular among young Americans.

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