When the DEA suspended the drug registration of Peter Pfeiffer on Monday, the agency said the Bellingham, Washington-based physician  had illegally provided hundreds of people across the country 34,400 doses of hydrocodone via the Web. Federal agents claim Pfeiffer allowed customers  to fill out an online questionnaire and provide unverified medical records to request the drug.

Pfeiffer was able to get away with issuing so many prescriptions because there is no cap on the number of prescriptions that  doctors can issue in a given period. Arguably there shouldn't be, as this may hinder patients from legal access to controlled substances. But at the same time, this lack of regulation allows someone like Pfeiffer to prescribe a Schedule III drug like candy.

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.