How do I change the user running DSE?

The user I'm referring to is the user created by the Datastax DSE package install. I'd like to replace that user with another account. I've found a couple of places where the "Cassandra user" is defined, in the init.d file as well as in the /default/DSE directory. I've also already reassigned permissions from "Cassandra" to my new user, but the DSE service won't start up unless I run it as **root** now. I've gone as far as completely wiping out the data, removing the node from the cluster, and repairing it with nodetool, but I can still only run the service as **root** or change everything back to the "Cassandra" user. The error message states that it's a read error in the metadata directory, but I've already ensured that the account has rights to it as well as the parent, I've also cleared out the local and peers file that was in the metadata directory.