PENN PSYCHOLOGIST CONFIRMED FOR A TOP DRUG POST

The Senate yesterday confirmed University of Pennsylvania psychologist
A. Thomas McLellan as deputy director of the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy.

The vote, by unanimous consent, means that McLellan will be the No. 2
to Gil Kerlikowske, the former police chief of Seattle, who was
confirmed this year as the office's director, better known as the drug
czar.

McLellan, a leading researcher in addiction and treatment, will be
charged with reducing the nation's demand for drugs.

Until his nomination by President Obama in April, McLellan, 60, was
executive director of the Treatment Research Institute, a nonprofit he
cofounded 17 years ago to study and compare treatments and to
translate scientific findings into clinical practice and public policy.