Senior Policy Analyst, Emerging Threats
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Georgetown University, McCourt School of Public Policy
Falls Church, Virginia
Richard J. Baum has served at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) for more than two decades through five presidential administrations. Baum was part of the team which drafted the Biden-Harris Administration National Drug Control Strategy and works on Evolving and Emerging Drug Threats.
Baum was Acting Director of ONDCP – or Drug Czar – from March 2017 to February 2018, responsible for coordinating the Nation’s government-wide approach to the drug issue. While Acting Director he served concurrently as Executive Director of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, managing the development of the Commission’s reports and recommendations.
During his career at ONDCP, he led the development of numerous strategic documents, including six editions of the National Drug Control Strategy, as well as the 2011 Transnational Organized Crime Strategy. For more than a decade he led ONDCP’s engagement with the United Nations. Prior to joining ONDCP he was a criminal justice and health policy writer/researcher and served for six years as a Congressional Staffer.
Mr. Baum is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's McCourt Graduate School of Public Policy where he teaches the course: The War on Drugs: Causes, Consequences, and Alternatives. He has earned a B.A. in Government and an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University, and an M.P.A. (Masters in Public Administration) from the University of Colorado. Raised in New York City, he resides now in Falls Church, Virginia with his wife and their two children.
Disclosure information not submitted.
Friday, November 4, 2022
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM