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Mathea Falco (born October 15, 1944 on Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama) is a former American diplomat and well known figure in the field of American and International drug policy. Falco is recognized both as the first Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and as the first woman to ever hold the position of Assistant Secretary of State.

After receiving her BA from Radcliffe College in 1965 and her JD from Yale University in 1968, Falco worked youth and drug related legal affairs before being appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve as the newly created Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Measures and Law Enforcement Affairs, a position she held from February 6th, 1979 to January 21st, 1981.

After leaving government, Falco continued her work in drug policy. In 1992 she founded Drug Strategies, a Washington D.C based drug policy center, whose mission is to “identify and promote more effective approaches to substance abuse and to increase public understanding of current research on what works and what does not.” The projects Drug Strategies projects have assessed and evaluated the effectiveness of drug education, prevention and treatment programs through the United States and have reviewed the merits of drug policy programs on state and federal levels.

Falco is a major figure in the fields of American drug policy and drug addiction treatment. She is both a visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School Center for International Criminal Justice and an Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY. Her expertise in the area of drug policy has led to appearances on PBS's Newshour, NPR's All things considered, and the HBO documentary "Addiction"