Press Release: Michael Botticelli Confirmed as Drug Czar

Contact: Darby Beck                                                                      For Immediate Release:

darby.beck@leap.cc                                                                                February 10, 2015

415.823.5496

MICHAEL BOTTICELLI CONFIRMED AS DRUG CZAR

Recovered Alcoholic Takes Top Spot at ONDCP

Washington D.C. – President Obama’s nominee for director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), acting director Michael Botticelli, was confirmed by the Senate 92-0 yesterday, granting him one of the nation’s highest drug-control offices. A recovered alcoholic with extensive career experience in public health, the new “drug czar,” as he is informally known, has potential to take more of a public health approach than did his predecessors, including former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, the most recent officeholder,  who was confirmed as Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection last March. Botticelli has recently stated that Congress shouldn’t interfere with the will of D.C. voters to legalize marijuana, despite the ONDCP’s official stance on legalization. Last week, he was quoted in a conference call saying that the ONDCP will bar federal funding from drug courts that prevent access to medication-assisted treatment for opiate addiction.

“Appointing someone who personally understands addiction provides hope that the government is taking a stronger public health approach to drug policy,” said Maj. Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). “Botticelli understands that it doesn’t make sense to treat drug users as criminals, because imprisonment has never proven to be effective at reducing abuse.”

Botticelli was arrested for drunk driving in 1988, and worked toward sobriety thereafter. He then dedicated his career to helping others recover. Botticelli joined the Massachusetts Department of Heath, and eventually served as director of substance abuse services from 2003 to 2012. As director, he oversaw a program in Quincy that gave police access to naloxone, a drug that saves lives by safely reversing opiate overdoses. His career is celebrated as one that prioritizes public health and safety for those who battle addiction, by instituting humane, effective and compassionate policies and programs. 

LEAP is a nonprofit of criminal justice professionals who know the war on drugs has created a public safety nightmare of increased gang violence, police militarization and the fueling of dangerous underground markets.

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A "Balanced Approach" to Drug Control?

Despite trumpeting a "balanced and comprehensive drug strategy," President Obama's White House Drug Czar's office announced this week that it is continuing the nearly two-to-one budget disparity that heavily favors spending on law enforcement and punishment over public health strategies like treatment and prevention.

Page 13 of this PDF has all the details.

And, in continuing with a shady practice first instituted by the Bush administration, it looks like Obama's ONDCP isn't even including many of the costs of waging the drug war in the budget breakdown, meaning that the supply vs. demand ratio even more heavily favors punishment over public health in reality than it does on paper (which is bad enough, if you ask us).

It sure was an encouraging signal when Drug Czar Kerlikowske declared that the "war on drugs" was over shortly after he took the job last year. But until the budget numbers match up with rhetoric, it looks like the war is still being waged.

Obama Drug Czar Comes Out Swinging Against Legalization

Fox Business News scored an exclusive interview with Obama "drug czar" Gil Kerlikowske on Thursday, in which the ONDCP director came out as strongly as ever against legalization.

The Fox hosts did a remarkable job asking Kerlikowske tough questions, making sure to remind him repeatedly that an increasing number of voters say we should legalize marijuana right now.

At one point, one of the Fox hosts asked Kerlikowske if he really wanted to be "fighting an uphill public relations battle with the voters" who increasingly support legalization. The drug czar, though, dismissed the notion that more and more people realize that prohibition isn't working, saying there's "no pressure on me" to seriously consider legalization.

Take a gander at the embedded clip:

Well, what do you think of the "drug czar's" anti-legalization arguments and how we can proactively or reactively counteract them? Let's get a discussion going in the comments.

At least Mr. Kerlikowske took the time to mention that the legalization community is "very strategic."

Why, thank you, sir.

Where is Bush Drug Czar John Walters?

After stepping down as President George W. Bush 's "drug czar," John P. Walters was hired as an executive vice president for the conservative Hudson Institute, a think tank. He came swinging right out of the gate, fighting back vigorously against legalization in the Wall Street Journal and other places, wherever duty called. He even debated LEAP's Terry Nelson on Al Jazeera TV:

Looking at Walters's bio on the Hudson site, though, there just aren't any signs he has been doing much of anything for the organization since April. What's Hudson paying the guy to do over there, anyway?

Perhaps, toward the end of 2008, Hudson thought it a brilliant notion to bring on Walters to spearhead prohibitionist drug policy thought leadership for the conservative apparatus.

But after witnessing the amazingly anti-prohibitionist shift that the public discourse on drug policy has taken throughout 2009, it seems that Hudson and the larger conservative establishment -- or anyone, for that matter -- just don't have all that much use for what John Walters has to say right about now.

To answer the question from above about John Walters's mysterious job description, perhaps at this point Hudson is merely paying the former "drug czar" to just keep his mouth shut for the time being.