The Drug Enforcement Administration employs approximately 9,800 personnel, including about 4,650 special agents, and operates on a budget exceeding $3 billion, according to a new report from the R Street Institute published June 25, 2026. The analysis, the sixth and final installment in a series examining major federal law enforcement agencies, reveals that the DEA holds a unique combination of powers among federal agencies: it doesn't just enforce drug laws but also helps determine which substances are controlled and how tightly, through its authority over the federal drug-scheduling system. That dual role has placed the agency at the center of the most consequential drug-policy debate in a generation—the rescheduling of marijuana, which reached a turning point in 2026.

The report details the DEA's sprawling operational footprint. Domestically, the agency is organized into 23 divisions overseeing more than 200 offices. Internationally, it maintains more than 90 foreign offices in 68 countries, one of the largest international footprints of any U.S. law enforcement agency. The DEA has been led since July 2025 by Administrator Terry Cole, a longtime agency veteran confirmed by the Senate. Early reporting in 2025 indicated the agency had shifted about a quarter of its work to immigration operations; by later in the year, internal data analyses put the share closer to half of its agents at certain points, with DEA referrals for prosecution falling over the same period. The agency is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and derives its authority from the Controlled Substances Act, codified in Title 21 of the U.S. Code.

According to the report, the DEA was created on July 1, 1973, through Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973, merging the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence, and drug-related elements of the U.S. Customs Service. The authors write that the agency was formed to enforce the Controlled Substances Act nationwide and coordinate the government's drug-control activities at home and abroad. The report finds that what distinguishes the DEA from a purely investigative agency is its role in the drug-scheduling system, noting that "by deciding how a substance is classified, the DEA helps determine not only whether it is legal but how its manufacture, distribution, or possession is punished under federal law." On April 23, 2026, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a final order creating a two-tier framework: it moved FDA-approved marijuana products and marijuana sold under a qualifying state medical license from Schedule I to Schedule III, while leaving all other marijuana, including recreational adult-use products, in Schedule I, with an expedited hearing set to begin June 29, 2026.

The report explains that the DEA's scheduling decisions have cascading effects far beyond federal prosecutions. Under federal law, penalties for manufacturing, distributing, or possessing a controlled substance are graded by schedule, with Schedule I and II offenses generally treated most severely. Most states have modeled their own controlled-substances laws on the federal system, with many incorporating the federal schedules directly—often through provisions that automatically conform to federal rescheduling. Because state and local authorities prosecute most drug crimes in the United States, a single federal scheduling decision can shape criminal liability for far more people than the DEA itself will ever arrest. Marijuana represents the conspicuous exception: even as it has remained a Schedule I substance under federal law, most states have legalized it for medical or recreational use, leaving federal and state law openly at odds. The 2026 federal rescheduling effort narrows but doesn't erase that divergence.

The report concludes that the DEA illustrates a theme running through the entire six-part series: each agency's mission, however it's written, is interpreted and deployed differently from one administration to the next. The authors note that the DEA's authority over drug scheduling is fixed in statute, yet the marijuana question shows how the same legal machinery can be pointed toward stricter enforcement in one era and toward loosening restrictions in another. The agency that enforced marijuana's Schedule I status for more than five decades is now the institution administering its partial reclassification. Understanding where that authority comes from, and where its limits lie, is what allows citizens to evaluate any given exercise of it—especially when these agencies are at the center of national debate.