August 11, 2009
"Drug Czar" Gil Kerlikowske, who said this spring and repeated again at the 6th Annual Border Security Conference that the phrase "War on Drugs"
is inaccurate, told NPT in a brief interview that there is no evidence legalizing marijuana would reduce the Drug War violence, and repeated his stand that neither he nor President Barack Obama believe legalizing any drugs is worth talking about or discussing.
But Kerlikowske, who by the rules governing his office cannot say anything else -- "The statute says we have to absolutely resist (legalization" -- said that the administration is working on a "different approach" to the Drug War.
"It hasn't been looked at much as a public health problem, which we intend to focus more on," he said. " We brought a group of prevention specialists together not long after I became the director. And the prevention specialists felt that their voices in quality prevention programs have not been heard."
Kerlikowske said with the deputy director just confirmed last week, a treatment researcher, "having that kind of a team, a policeman who understands and appreciates prevention and treatment and a treatment researcher who has an understanding of the criminal justice system and what it can do is going to be a great team."
When asked whether he thought the approach he described would lead to lesser numbers of people in prison for drug offenses, he said: "If you look the vast majority of people who are incarcerated are incarcerated at the state level, and all of the states given their budget issues are looking at assistance at the federal level. The administration has taken on the issue of disparate sentencing, crack v. powder, and has made a statement on that."
When asked whether there was a difference between hard drugs like cocaine and marijuana he said it was a question for the attorney general, and when pressed on the question he said "I'd wait and ask the attorney, I've had only one meeting with the attorney general so far and I'm pretty new in my tenure so I think I'd just defer until we go further down the road."
As for medical marijuana, he said: "I think the medical marijuana, we're reserving that question for the medical community. The decision on whether marijuana actually has a medicinal benefit within its chemical compoud is a question we're going to let science answer."
Finally, he was asked about whether the end of Prohibition reduced violence in Chicago, and whether that was a possible model for legalizing marijuana.
"I'm not sure I'd liken what we're talking about to Prohibition, but I don't think anybody thought after Prohibition was lifted crime ended as a result," Kerlikowske said.