Kerlikowske Finds Ideology

7/24/09, 12:34 am EST
This is a major disappointment:

Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske hit the road this week to rail against the perils of pot:

“Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit,” he said at an appearance in Fresno, California.

This is a striking departure from what Kerlikowske told me in an interview in May.

Because of the restrictive terms the Vice President’s office imposed on our interview, I’m not at liberty to quote the drug czar directly.

But when I asked Kerlikowske for an example of how he hoped to bring sound science back to Office of National Drug Control Policy, he told me that science would answer whether smoked marijuana has any medical benefit.

That’s a question that science answers, he told me, not ideology.

From this week’s comments, it appears it took just two more months on the job for Kerlikowske’s openness to scientific uncertainty to snap shut in a fit of ideological conviction.

Tim Dickinson

Yes, we know that the Drug Czar is required by law to lie, but given the abysmally low standards set by Gil Kerlikowske’s predecessor we certainly expected better than this.

Drug czar: Feds won’t support legalized pot
via The Fresno Bee

The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in Fresno.

… “Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine,” he said. … “Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.”

Most folks visiting this blog ought to recognize Kerlikowske’s first bit of hyperbole; after all, this isn’t the first time the Czar has admitted to possessing a severely limited vocabulary. It’s Kerlikowske’s second allegation — an outright lie — that truly has people flabbergasted. And with good reason.

Hundreds of scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals now document the therapeutic utility of cannabis. That’s why thirteen states, encompassing more than 25 percent of the US population, have legalized the physician-supervised use of pot. To add insult to injury, the Drug Czar was visiting a medical marijuana state (California) when he made his asinine remark.

Then again, the Kerlikowske is stunted by his limited vocabulary. So perhaps he is unable to read the findings of the hundreds of studies presently available in the scientific literature. But is that any excuse to deny what is taking place in front of his eyes?

For instance, a new study published in the Journal of Opioid Management just days prior to Kerlikowske’s foot-in-mouth speech affirms:

“Clearly, there is a growing acceptability of the therapeutic practice of medicinal cannabis use amongst organized medicine groups. … Estimates indicate that in 2008, approximately 7,000 American physicians have made such authorizations for a total of approximately 400,000 patients.”

So which is it Gil? Are more than 7,000 US physicians really all just snake-oil salesmen? Are 400,000 US patients actually just suffering from one massive placebo effect? Or are you sir, just like your predecessor, simply full of sh*t?

Marijuana No Longer Focus of Anti-Drug Campaigns

CBS News Examination Finds Prescription Drugs Are Seen as Bigger Threat Than Marijuana by Government, Non-Profit Groups

[Editor's note: Hallelujah!]

By Elizabeth Sprague

Over the last several years, without many people realizing it, the U.S. government has changed the focus of its anti-drug efforts, deemphasizing marijuana in favor of prescription drugs.

A CBS News survey of government and nonprofit anti-drug groups has found a retreat from anti-marijuana campaigns over the past several years as prescription and over the counter drug abuse has grown amongst teens.

In fact, the Partnership for a Drug Free America, the nation’s largest creator of anti-drug messages, hasn’t produced a single anti-marijuana public service advertisement since 2005.

The change comes as a result of the decline in marijuana use amongst teens, and growing worry over the abuse of prescription drugs. Marijuana use has been declining for 10 years and past-month use is down 25 percent since 2001 according to the largest tracking study in the U.S., “Monitoring the Future” by the University of Michigan.

Meanwhile prescription drug abuse has held steady over the past five years according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, with nearly one in five teens (19 percent) abusing prescription medications to get high.

“There is a new threat in town,” Robert Dennisoton of the Office of National Drug Control Policy said.

The concern about pills has been highlighted by a string of high profile deaths like that of Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, and possibly Michael Jackson — all tied to the abuse of legal prescription drugs.

In an effort to spread awareness about the dangers of the misuse of prescription drugs, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America even refers to young people today as “Generation Rx” in TV advertisements that point to the dangers of misuse of those drugs.

“For this generation, high prevalence of prescription drug abuse was kicking in… there was a dawning, and a number of us began to feel that we need to do something about it,” said Sean Clark, executive vice president with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy, the government’s drug policy wing, now dedicates all of its campaign resources directed at parents – some $14 million dollars since 2008 – to the abuse of prescription and over the counter drugs.

“The issue of prescription drug abuse, which the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been shouting about from the rooftops, it is a significant problem in this country,” National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske said on “The Early Show” last week.

Advocates for marijuana legalization argue that the shift from anti-marijuana to anti-pill messages has come at least in large part because prescription and over the counter medicines are far more deadly than marijuana.

Full Story

Dictionaries for Drug Czar Kerlikowske - click here to donate online to NORML and we'll remind Director Kerlikowske and President Obama that "legalization" needs to be in their vocabularies.

Remember this statement from our Drug Czar that “legalization” is not in the president’s vocabulary, nor in his own?

Numerous writers in the blogosphere (including me) said, “Somebody get Gil a dictionary!” So we decided here at NORML to launch the official “Dictionaries for the Drug Czar” Campaign.  Here’s how you can participate:

Dictionaries for the Drug Czar Campaign

1. Go to your local discount store and buy a cheap pocket dictionary.
2. Find legalization inside and mark it with a yellow highlighter and a Post-It® or paper-clip on that page
3. Mail that dictionary to the Drug Czar at the address below.

Cheaper Option:

1. Buy a postcard.
2. On the postcard write: “Director Kerlikowske, here is a new word for your vocabulary: le·gal·i·za·tion (noun): the act of authorizing something previously illegal.”
3. Mail that postcard to the Drug Czar at the address below.

Cheap and simple no-mail option:

1. Click that graphic up above to donate online to NORML.
2. Fill in the boldfaced fields.
3. Click the “Comments (Add any group affiliation here)”.
4. Enter “Dictionary for the Drug Czar” in that line.

MAIL YOUR DICTIONARIES AND POST CARDS TO:

Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
Executive Office of the President (EOP)
Attn: Director Gil Kerlikowske
Washington, DC 20503

The remarks from our Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy on the release of the UN 2009 World Drug Report, which endorsed drug decriminalization in a reversal of previous policy. Guess which 17-letter D-word never gets mentioned once in our “drug czar’s” 781-word statement?

Statement of R. Gil Kerlikowske
Director, National Drug Control Policy
Remarks at Release of the 2009 World Drug Report
June 24, 2009

It is a great pleasure for me to be here with UNODC Executive Director Antonio Costa for the release of the 2009 World Drug Report. I am also pleased that we can be joined today by Michele Leonhart, Acting Administrator of DEA, and William McGlynn, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). Congratulations to Antonio and his team in Vienna for putting together this very comprehensive document. As the report shows, every nation is affected by the drug problem.

As we approach June 26th, International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking, it is a good time to reflect on what we can do better. In the United States, we are moving away from divisive “drug war” rhetoric and focusing on employing all the tools at our disposal to get help to those who need it. We recognize that addiction is a disease and are seeking public health solutions. My top priority is to intensify efforts to reduce the demand for drugs which fuels crime and violence around the world.

Full Story

Well, some of the much vaunted and promised ‘change’ under a President Obama appears to be coming true in the formal nomination yesterday of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, and the mainstream media certainly seems to be picking up on all of the positive and salient points about Chief Kerlikowske that drug policy reform advocates have been touting since his name was first floated almost a month ago. Listen to the coverage of the announcement at National Public Radio.

Unlike the prior Drug Czar, John ‘Unicorn’ Walters, a moral crusader (aptly dubbed Bill Bennett’s ‘Mini-Me’ by the DPA’s Ethan Nadelmann), Chief Kerlikowske crafted pragmatic public policies and law enforcement practices that immediately distinguish him from his predecessors such as Bennett, Gen. Barry McCaffrey and Walters.

To wit:

-200,000 pro-reform cannabis law supporters converge on the waterfront in Seattle in mid-August for the world famous Hempfest, where adults openly consume cannabis and the hundreds of police present make few to no arrests (and where, ironically, alcohol use is strictly forbidden).

-Local law enforcement in Seattle apparently does not harass the artisans who craft and market the remarkable glass paraphernalia (AKA, medical delivery devices) for which Seattle is famous.

Compare that with Walters’ and former Attorney General Ashcroft’s zealous pursuit and culture-smashing symbolism of arresting, prosecuting and actually incarcerating NORML Advisory Board member Tommy Chong for nine months in a federal prison for the ‘crime’ of selling high-end artisan, Chong Bongs.

-Seattle police have a generally good track record working with medical cannabis providers, physicians and patients—including Chief Kerlikowske meeting with medical cannabis stakeholders about how to best implement Washington State’s 2000 medical cannabis laws. Compare this with Walters and McCaffrey who collectively spent 14 years insisting that there is no such thing at all as medical cannabis (often comparing it to crack cocaine), patients who claim efficacy or relief from cannabis as ‘fakers’, recommending physicians as ‘kooks’ and the majority of citizens who’ve voted for medical cannabis law reform as ‘easily duped by legalizers’.

-Rumor has it that Chief Kerlikowske has actually employed the term ‘harm reduction‘ in a sentence without employing foul language! In fact, under his leadership (and that of former Seattle Police Chief and NORML Advisory Board member Norm Stamper before him) Seattle police both recognize and practice the increasingly popular, European-inspired police/public health doctrine known as harm reduction. Two of the important tenets of harm reduction are concentrating police resources on so-called ‘hard’ drugs rather than cannabis consumers and needle exchange to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases–both championed by Chief Kerlikowske, and totally dismissed as ‘tools for legalization’ by McCaffrey and Walters.

-Despite publicly opposing a reform effort in 2003 in Seattle to make adult cannabis possession a low law enforcement priority, once I-75 was passed by a majority of voters, Chief Kerlikowske shrugged off the lost, embraced the public-health centric arguments advanced by reform advocates, and met with law reformers in the Seattle-area like I-75 campaigner and NORML board member Dominic Holden, defense attorney and NORML Board member Jeff Steinborn, popular travel author/TV host and NORML advisory board member Rick Steves.

John Walters on the otherhand would not even appear in the same green room with me backstage on TV news show, let alone debate live on the same sound stage.

Looks to me like Chief Kerlikowske is a real man…not a moralistic, lie-to-beat-the-band bureaucrat.

-Chief Kerlikowske’s former colleagues on the police force, cannabis law reform activists, medical patients, civil rights lawyers and public health officials all seem to recognize that science and ‘smart on crime’ (as compared to ‘tough on crime’ and ineffective platitudes like ‘just say no’ or ‘drug-free America’) drive his policing—not ideology and a twisted sense of personal morality.

With the recent report from a pair of WA researchers affirming that the ONDCP under McCaffrey and Walters obsessed too much on cannabis prohibition, and not enough on meth, crack, heroin…a decided change in leadership at ONDCP can’t happen fast enough.

Lastly, it was also announced yesterday by the 1980s congressional author of the ONDCP charter, no less and with sweet karmic irony, Vice President Joe Biden, that despite the best intentions of placing the ONDCP into the President’s cabinet in 1988, from this point forward the ONDCP is no longer going to be a cabinet-level office.

Whoa. Now that is change NORML and taxpayers can believe in!

NORML, like most drug law reform organizations, waited with bated breath to learn who President Obama would nominate as the nation’s next Drug Czar. We now know that Obama has named former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske for this position, and that he has accepted the President’s nomination.

Today, we join with many of our colleagues in expressing a cautious optimism that Mr. Kerlikowske will bring science and compassion to an office that, for far too long, has lacked either.

Why are we optimistic? As I explain in today’s edition of The Hill’s influential Congress blog:

Does Obama’s Pick Signal ‘Change’ At The Drug Czar’s Office?
via The Hill.com

[excerpt]

On the positive side, Kerlikowske hails from Seattle — a city that has elected to make the enforcement of marijuana crimes cops’ ‘lowest priority.’ And although the police chief spoke out against the initiative effort — which passed with 58 percent of the vote in 2003 — he’s abided by the will of the people since then. Consequently, there are now fewer marijuana-related arrests in Seattle than in virtually any other major city in the United States.

At first glance, Kerlikowoske also appears to take a tolerant approach toward the medical use of marijuana. Since 1999, Washington state law has allowed for the possession, cultivation, and doctor supervised use of marijuana under state law. (Twelve additional U.S. States have similar laws.) Whereas Kerlikowske’s White House predecessor (John Walters) refused to even acknowledge that cannabis possessed even the slightest hint of therapeutic value, Seattle’s exiting police chief accepted the law and has made few, if any, efforts to undermine it.

It’s also worth mentioning that Seattle is home to the annual Seattle Hempfest, a several hundred thousand person gathering in Seattle’s Myrtle Edwards Park. Organizers of the event have consistently praised the attitudes of the city’s police force for treating the event’s attendees with the utmost respect and tolerance.

There are other reasons to believe that the nomination of Kerlikowske represents something more than just be politics as usual. NORML Board Members Dominic Holden, a Seattle native, and Norm Stamper — who served as Seattle Police Chief prior to Kerlikowske’s appointment in 2000 –  touch on many of these reasons here and here.

Of course, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As I wrote in The Hill, “Kerlikowske is first and foremost a cop. He’s served 36 years in law enforcement, and it would be foolish to assume that he will embrace the public’s desire to amend America’s antiquated and overly punitive pot policies with open arms.” Kerlikowske must also be approved by the members of the U.S. Senate, many of whom remain woefully unenlightened of the public’s demand for rational drug policies.

So here’s your chance to tell them. As I’ve written before, The Hill is widely read by lawmakers and by the mainstream media. That’s why NORML is asking you to take time today to comment on my latest editorial. Tell Congress that it is high time America confirms a Drug Czar who will demand reason before rhetoric, and who will put the interests of people before prisons.

President Barack Obama promised “change” inside the Beltway, and nowhere is change more sorely needed than in the Office of National Drug Control Policy. What changes would you like to see? Write The Hill and join the discussion.

Update!!! Update!!! Update!!! 

Please tune in to NORML’s podcast tonight at 4:20pst when host Russ Belville will interview former Seattle Police Chief and NORML Advisory Board Member Norm Stamper regarding the selection of colleague Gil Kerlikowke as Drug Czar.

According to just published news reports, President Barack Obama has tapped Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation’s next ‘Drug Czar.’

From Seattle’s top cop to ‘drug czar’
via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[excerpt]

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske has been appointed to a law enforcement post within the Obama administration, which would return him to Washington, D.C., after almost a decade as Seattle’s top cop, sources said Tuesday.

… Kerlikowske came to Seattle in 2000 after serving as deputy director in the Justice Department, overseeing the Community Oriented Policing Services grant program. A military veteran with 36 years in law enforcement, he spent four years as Buffalo’s police commissioner after starting his career in Florida.

On the positive side, Kerlikowske hails from Seattle — a city that has elected to make the enforcement marijuana crimes cops’ lowest priority. And although the police chief spoke out against the initiative effort — which passed with 58 percent of the vote in 2003 — he’s abided by the will of the people since then. As a result, there are now fewer marijuana-related arrests in Seattle than in virtually any other major city in the United States.

On the negative side, Kerlikowske is first and foremost a cop. He’s served 36 years in law enforcement, and it is foolish to assume that he will in any way embrace our issue with open arms. That said, I find myself in cautious agreement with NORML Board Member (and longtime Seattle resident) Dominic Holden, who believes that Kerlikowske may bring a “progressive” approach to an agency that has, almost since its inception, operated in the ‘Dark Ages.’

The day the U.S. government finally — and properly — recognizes that drug use is a public health problem and not solely a criminal justice issue will be the day that the President appoints a White House ‘Drug Czar’ who possesses a professional background in public health, addiction, and treatment rather than in law enforcement.

But until that day arrives, perhaps the best we reformers can hope for is a cop who appreciates that pot poses less of a danger to the public than alcohol, and who recognizes that from a practical and fiscal standpoint, targeting and arresting adults who engage in the responsible use of cannabis doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. At first glance, Obama’s pick — unlike his predecessor John Walters — appears to possess both of these common sense qualities.