Marquette University Law Review article breaks news on national DEA, opioid fight

The Marquette Law Review isn't normally in the business of breaking news.

But a soon-to-be-published article in the review has emerged as a key piece in an explosive investigative report that claims Congress helped disarm the Drug Enforcement Administration even as the country was dealing with a spiraling opioid crisis.

The article, to appear in the review's winter issue, was written by DEA Administrative Law Judge John J. Mulrooney II, and his former legal clerk, Katherine E. Legel, a recent Marquette University Law School graduate.

Mulrooney and Legel sought to detail the impact of an April 2016 law passed by Congress that critics say diminished the agency's authority over drug distributors.

"If it had been the intent of Congress to completely eliminate the DEA’s ability to ever impose an immediate suspension on distributors or manufacturers, it would be difficult to conceive of a more effective vehicle for achieving that goal," the article says, according to a draft.

In a joint investigation, the Washington Post and CBS News' "60 Minutes" found "a handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills."

The Post called the law "the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than $1 million into their election campaigns."

The lawmaker who helped shepherd the bill through Congress, U.S. Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), is President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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The Post quoted from the law review article as a counterpoint to industry officials who defended the new law.

Established in 1916, the student-run Marquette Law Review is published quarterly and dives into legal issues in Wisconsin and nationwide.

Michael Anspach, a third-year law student, is the current editor in chief. He said the first contact for the article was made in late June, when Legel reached out in an email to Marquette law professor Daniel Blinka and Blake Nold, senior articles editor of the law review.

Within the week, Anspach said he was on the phone with Mulrooney as they discussed if the law review would be the right home for the article.

"Right off the bat, I knew I wanted the article based on its subject matter," Anspach said.

An Ohio native and graduate of Boston College, Anspach said two of his friends died of opiate-related deaths in recent months.

"I knew of the devastation that was being caused as a result of the opioid epidemic, being in Milwaukee, coming from Ohio and coming from the northeast United States where these epidemics are running rampant," he said.

He said the article would help "raise awareness for the epidemic generally and some roadblocks that need to be overcome in order for this to be effectively addressed."

The law review received a draft of the article at the end of July, Anspach said. Over the past two weeks, as the explosive investigative report was set to publish and air, the editing process went into overdrive.

"We've had all hands on deck with this article," Anspach said. "We doubled our efforts. Normally, we'd have three people editing it. Due to its size, we had six people on it at one point. We probably had about a dozen people already working on this article."

The law review released a draft of the article. Editing will continue. Publication will take place in February.