Acting drug enforcement chief set to retire at end of month

WASHINGTON (AP) — A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration says the agency’s acting administrator will be retiring at the end of June.

The spokeswoman, Mary Brandenberger, has confirmed a report in The Washington Post that DEA chief Robert Patterson had announced his retirement.

The Post reported Monday that Patterson had sent an email to DEA staff in which he said running the agency on a temporary basis had become “increasingly challenging.”

The newspaper said Patterson wrote that he had “realized that the administrator of the DEA needs to decide and address priorities for years into the future” — something he could not do in an acting capacity.

Patterson was appointed acting administrator in October 2017. He began his career with the DEA in 1988.