Ever since putting up this post a few weeks ago, I’ve been wondering how Gil Kerlikowske went, seemingly overnight, from being a moderately progressive police chief to the hardass, “legalization is not in my vocabulary” drug czar he is today.

While in Seattle, he did well with needle exchanges, Hempfest, and programs to send drug offenders to treatment instead of prison. He never railed against the drug war, but his actions weren’t those of a zealous drug warrior.

Now that he’s in the other Washington, he’s fighting Prop 19 in California with disinformation campaigns and, well, saying things like “legalization is not in my vocabulary.” (To be fair, drug-policy analyst Sanho Tree argues that “legalization” shouldn’t be in anyone’s vocabulary because it’s misleading—we should be talking “regulation” instead.)

So what happened?

I requested an interview with Kerlikowske (about levamisole as well as his new job), which his people turned down. Then Seattle’s other former police chief (and legalization/regulation advocate) Norm Stamper sent this my way—evidence that the nation’s drug czar is required, by law, to oppose any efforts at legalization and regulation.

“No way,” I said.

“I know, I was surprised, too,” Stamper said. “In re-upping the office of national drug control policy charter, it basically says that he is banned from any kind of public statements to the effect for support for the legalization of marijuana. My reaction was: ‘Wow. And this is America?’“

The exact language, from the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998:

The director shall… take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that—

A. is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and B. has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;

“He’s the drug czar,” Stamper said. “He must be opposed to drug use—not just drug abuse. His budget is reliant on continuation of the status quo. The same could be said of the drug cartels and major traffickers.”

So that explains that. Even if Kerlikowske secretly hopes Prop 19 passes, he is banned from saying so.

Meanwhile, Vicente Fox (former president of Mexico) throws out his money quote on California’s marijuana-legalization vote: “May God let it pass.”

Amen.

Also: Did you know Norm Stamper has a new hobby? Acting! (Lord help him.) He’s in a two-person show at Hugo House called Brilliant Traces (in which he plays an Alaskan hermit) this weekend and next weekend.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

16 replies on “What Do Narco-Capitalists and America’s Drug Czar Have in Common?”

  1. this is what i’ve been saying since he got appointed. someone has to play the role, and gil got appointed because he WASN’T going to be as much of a hard-ass as 1000 other COPs.

    california must defy the feds for progress to be made.

  3. Vicente Fox hasn’t been president of Mexico since 2006. Felipe Calderon is president of Mexico. He is opposed to Prop 19. Just thought you ought to know,

  4. “legalization is not in my vocabulary.”

    The left has left themselves little wiggle room on this issue. If an Obama czar were to say the same thing about illegal immigrants, liberals would be outraged. But now that the Feds wanna get involved in state rights- it’s a big deal, meanwhile, when states rights were tossed aside like in the Arizona illegal immigration case, liberals applaud. Liberals have followed the path of their favorite Republican, Abraham Lincoln, the government knows more than the people. The will of the government is more enlightened than that of the people. I support the legalization of all drugs, not just pot, but liberals reap what they sew.

  6. @4

    don’t see a conflict for liberals, because states rights is not an organizing principle for the left. if we were talking about conservatives, then your argument would point to an intellectual conflict. whether or not intellectual conflicts even matter in politics is an entirely other issue.

  7. Given the two drug related shoot outs in downtown Seattle during the past week, in broad daylight, only the most criminally minded would want to legalize drugs.

  8. @7 how does your brain maintain regulated processes like circulation and respriration while still having enough leftover firepower to be so deliberately clueless?

  11. 5, States rights mean nothing to you? Have you read the constitution? OMG! I misspelled a word, if only a teleprompter were around to correct me!

    6, Thank you for admitting that the left has no nationalist pride or belief in their state. They’re commies who believe that the government and one world power can properly dictate what people should do.

  12. So let me test my understanding…

    If Juan Williams because he espouses his prejudice on Fox News… it’s an outrage that NPR fires him and they should lose federal funding.

    If the Drug Czar espouses an opinion that currently illicit drugs should be legalized and regulated… he must be fired (per a bill passed in 1998, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress).

    It’s an outrage! The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy should lose federal funding immediately!

  16. Shouldn’t their be some kind of constitutional argument to let public officials speak their mind? Cause what if he came out and said “ENOUGH”, would they really fire him for admitting that people suffering terminal illness find smoking a euphoric plant better than taking some of the most destructive and addictive pain medication possible? Time to put on your man pants. Also, it’s time to take marijuana off the controlled substance list, the idea that America’s number one cash crop being “controlled” by our government is completely laughable. At least with things like Cocaine and Heroine that aren’t made domestically they have a bit of a point.

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