TOUGH TEXAN TO TACKLE DRUG WAR; TANDY IN THE SPOTLIGHT AS FIRST WOMAN TO
LEAD DEA

Karen Tandy won't name the Texas prosecutor who told her back in the 1970s
that women didn't have the killer instinct to be criminal prosecutors, her
aspiration at the time.

But he should know that her aggressiveness was part of the reason she has
been named as the first woman to run the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"She has been willing to take on tough jobs, to solve problems, and to push.
She has shown that she believes law enforcment can be pro-active, not just
passively waiting for someone to poison yet another child with drugs and
then arrest them," said John Walters, the director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

Tandy, 49, from the north Texas town of Hurst, was officially sworn in as
the head of the DEA on Tuesday, after being confirmed by the Senate in
August. She previously headed the Justice Department's anti-drug task forces
around the country.

It was while clerking for a federal judge in Texas soon after graduating
from Texas Tech in the 1970s that Tandy came to admire assistant district
attorneys.

"I decided that is what I wanted to do with my life," she said in a recent
interview at DEA headquarters in northern Virginia. "I had thought that I
would stay in Texas, but one of the potential employers I interviewed with
told me women didn't have the killer instinct to be criminal prosecutors.
That caused me to look to the Department of Justice and move to Washington."

Tandy's nomination passed the Senate with limited dissent. There was some
criticism from lawmakers and advocates wary of her tough stand on the issue
of DEA raids targeted at patients claiming to use marijuana for medicinal
purposes. Tandy said she would not support temporarily discontinuing the
raids.

That angered proponents of medical marijuana, including Steve Fox, of the
Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project.

"To claim there is no evidence of marijuana's medical benefits, without
having bothered to read the two key U.S. government reports on the issue, is
as absurd as claiming there is no constitutional protection for abortion
rights without having read Roe v. Wade," Fox said. "Tandy has demonstrated
the 'don't confuse me with facts' attitude that has characterized the entire
federal attack on medical marijuana."

But Tandy does not apologize for her position.

"It is not about marijuana as medicine. That is a lie," said Tandy.
"Legalizers have very cleverly and effectively used that as a smoke screen
for what they really are about, legalizing illicit drugs."

At the DEA, Tandy will concentrate on disrupting major drug operations and
targeting the more than $ 65 billion in profits they take in each year.

When the DEA job opened up earlier this year, several current and former law
enforcement officials in Washington went to bat for Tandy, including
Walters, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and former DEA administrator
Jack Lawn.

"I was very supportive of the decision to nominate her," Walters said. "I
thought there was no one better to carry on the work DEA is doing."

Tandy said Lawn has been a close adviser as she began her tenure at the DEA.
"The best advice I got from him was the same advice I got from a DEA agent I
spoke with who was dying. And that was to remember it is all about the
people, it is all about the American people and future generations, and it
is all about the people inside DEA who have tremendously difficult jobs to
do."

Tandy will need all the advice she can get, federal law enforcment officials
said. Past directors have crashed against the rocks of a rigid DEA culture.

"The DEA rank and file has generally viewed the administrator as a foreign
body that needs to be expelled," said another federal official.

As for Tandy's chances to survive that culture, another ranking official
said: "She is a tough, seasoned bureaucrat with the necessary infighting
skills. She seems very politically attuned. The question about her is
whether she is a leader, and whether she has the vision necessary for the
job."

In addition to internal pressure, the DEA administrator, like the FBI
director and other major law enforcement agency heads, can become a
lightning rod for criticism. "These organizations are difficult to manage,"
Walters said. "No one ever hears about the thousands of successful cases.
But everyone is going to hear about the problem cases."

Tandy will be managing an organization with nearly 10,000 employees, and
offices around the country and overseas.

She also faces the fact that the Bush administration is currently focused on
the war on terror.

But she said the administration has been generous to the DEA. The agency
will add 216 agents in 2003 and another 233 in 2004, Tandy said. "DEA has
the resources to do the job America expects us to do."

Tandy's career in federal law enforcement has included key anti-drug posts
in the Justice Department headquarters in Washington.

She is married to a retired FBI official and has two teenage daughters.

Tandy began her career as a federal law enforcement official in Alexandria,
Va., where she worked as an assistant U.S. attorney. She then spent several
years in Seattle as a federal prosecutor while her husband ran the FBI
office there.

She first worked at Justice Department headquarters in Washington in 1990,
and created the litigation office in the asset forfeiture division.

In 1993, Tandy became head of the narcotics office at Justice. By January
2001, she was supervising the efforts of DEA, FBI, Customs and state and
local law enforcement officials in major investigations.

PLANS

Tandy will:

Work to halt major drug operations.

Target the billions in profits they take in.

Oppose medicinal marijuana.