Drug Czar

[JPablo]

Per Random House,
Czar
4. any person exercising great authority or power in a particular field: a czar of industry.

In the usage of "Drug Czar", we get "the person who directs drug-control policies" particularly in the USA. And I believe this expression has spread overseas... (?)

Translating this into Spanish as "Zar de la Droga", seems to me that could be quite ambiguous, or even totally wrong, as it could come across as "the capo of the Drug trafficking", not the guy who fights against them...

I would translate it as "Zar contra la Droga", but I'd like to hear your views on this and/or any better ideas regarding this term and usages...

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Al funcionario encargado de eso en México lo llamaron "el zar antidrogas".

[JPablo]

Gracias, Angelica. Creo que la clave está en el "anti", supongo.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Elimina la anfibología. :D

[JPablo]

¡Exacto! :D

[wafflestomp]

I know I am a few days late, but just commenting on the English side of it - we have Czars for all kinds of things. We have a Drug Czar (the official role is the head of the White House Office of Drug Policy or something like that), a "border" czar, a "Green Jobs" czar, etc. It really depends on who you are talking about for whether you would call it a czar or not though. The government likes to make czars out of people for certain policies, like when President Obama was passing his stimulus act, there was a stimulus czar. Or during Health Care reform, we had a health care czar. The DNI (Director of National Intelligence) could be called a "czar" but no one really calls it that. The real common ones are drug czar, green jobs czar, science czar (head of White House science office), less commonly the border czar, who is actually (I believe) an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security.

[JPablo]

Thanks a lot for your input on this. Gives me a better reality on how the term is used in English! :thumbsup: