New ONDCP appointment

Obama's Drug Czar nominee seems to be well on his way to confirmation and now we learn that A. Thomas McLellan has been nominated for Deputy Director of the ONDCP. McLellan founded the Treatment Research Institute, co-authored a landmark paper making the argument that addiction is a chronic illness and, more recently, has been working closely with Bill White and others on implementing a recovery-oriented system of care in Philadelphia. (Here's something that they wrote together.)

This seems to be very good news. Hopefully they'll get the latitude that they need to initiate meaningful reforms.