Talk:John C. Lawn

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Irrelevant or poorly integrated claims

The article originally included two poorly integrated claims concerning Lawn's work as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The first of these was a claim on Lawn's failure to secure extra funding for crack cocaine investigators in 1986 that was bizarrely placed in the lead. The budget for crack cocaine enforcement was significantly increased later in Lawn's tenure as DEA administrator; I fail to see why his failure to get approval for funds in 1986 should be added to the lead, or indeed even mentioned in the article.

The second claim was on Lawn's role in the rescheduling of MDMA. This was largely copied from the MDMA article. I fail to see why this material should be duplicated here. Rgr09 (talk) 15:08, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, it is/was controversial and he was directly involved. As a major event during his tenture, a biography of him would likely be incomplete without covering it. It should probably be focused more on his role rather than being a copy-paste from MDMA. Sizeofint (talk) 16:23, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I'm responsible for the note on Lawn's role re: MDMA's rescheduling. I was also responsible for adding this information to the main MDMA article at the same time, which is why they looked similar. I'm planning a rewrite to re-add this information to the article. However, as for why it should be included, I'd echo the sentiments of User:Sizeofint, along with stating that it's my belief that the scientific data (both current, and at the time) and the historical evidence show that the rescheduling of MDMA, and more broadly, the demonisation of substances such as MDMA, ketamine, and the classical psychedelics, whose therapeutic value had already been tentatively established by the medical and psychiatric communities, will be looked back upon as amongst the biggest blunders and setbacks of the 20th century's various misadventures in politicising science, along with Lysenkoism and eugenics. I hope that this is a viewpoint that can be made concisely evident with a few intelligent references, and if so, the relevance and importance of including Lawn's role in this in his biographic article should be obvious. Antic-Hay (talk) 12:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I missed this note, excuse a very late response. I appreciate your work on the MDMA article, but the lengthy discussion of the issue here is, in my opinion, off-topic and undue weight. MDMA is a much more appropriate place to discuss whether or not the rescheduling of MDMA was "amongst the biggest blunders and setbacks of the 20th century's various misadventures in politicising science". Rgr09 (talk) 05:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Successor

Lawn retired March 23, 1990. He was followed by Terrance M. Burke, a career DEA agent, as Acting Administrator. Robert Bonner was nominated as the new Administrator on May 11, 1990. He was confirmed by the Senate on July 27, 1990 and sworn in as Administrator on August 13, 1990. The article originally listed Burke, but since there was and is no article on Burke, those not in the know could never have found the next Administrator. I have dropped Burke and added Bonner, leaving this note. If you want to add an article on Burke, fine. If not, please don't change the successor back. Rgr09 (talk) 05:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)