Search Results: kerlikowske (46)

Smoked marijuana/became President.

The Obama administration is taking a shift (albeit not a very drastic one) towards treating drug problems as a health issue and not as a criminal issue. On Wednesday the White House released their 2013 National drug Control Strategy, a 104-page document that outlines how treatment should become a focus for the nation’s drug control policy.
But at the same time, it doesn’t really tell the police and DEA to stop arresting anybody either and continues a prohibition and war against marijuana (both recreational and medical).

Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

By Ron Marczyk, RN

“It is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana.” ~ Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske
Let’s start that serious national conversation about marijuana! Seventy-five years late is better than never. Why now? Because marijuana legalization support is growing and is more popular by several points then any politician in the country! 
  
This new marijuana majority has the momentum, the votes and the moral high ground; if you support prohibition you are showing your age and your lack of medical science knowledge and you shouldn’t be in office making decisions that affect young people 18-34 who are the new face of America.
 
This new marijuana spring just gave birth to legalization.

Reason
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske: “Calling it medicine sends a terrible message”

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske — required by law to lie about the medical efficacy of cannabis — has, unsurprisingly, attacked the herb again in a speech in San Francisco.

“Calling it medicine sends a terrible message” to American youth, according to the Czar, reports Chris Roberts at NBC Bay Area. Gil seems unfamiliar with or indifferent to the fact that the U.S. federal government itself has been providing free medical marijuana to a handful of patients for 30 years under the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program.
Gil could also use a refresher course on the thousands of scientific studies which show marijuana’s medical effectiveness. Oh well; I guess Science “sends a terrible message” to youth, as well.

The Raw Story
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is the wrong place to go for the truth about marijuana

The Obama Administration has just released a new response to three WhiteHouse.gov petitions on marijuana legalization. Perhaps significantly, for the first time Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is now saying “it is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana.”

“I guess it makes a difference when marijuana legalization gets more votes than your boss does in an important swing state, as happened in Colorado this last election,” Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, told Toke of the Town Tuesday night. “From ‘legalization is not in my vocabulary and it’s not in the president’s,’ as Gil Kerlikowske often used to say, to ‘it is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana’ is a pretty stark shift.
“Of course, what really matters is to what extent the administration actually shifts enforcement priorities and budgets, but I sure do like hearing the U.S. drug czar acknowledge the fact that marijuana legalization is a mainstream discussion that is happening whether he likes it or not,” Angell told us.

James Berglie/End The Lie
Sen. Patrick Leahy: “One option would be to amend the Federal Controlled Substances Act to allow possession of up to one ounce of marijuana”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy: “Legislative Options Exist” to Resolve Potential Federal/State Conflict Over Marijuana Legalization in Colorado and Washington 
Seeks Assurances From Obama Administration That State Officials Will Not Be Prosecuted For Implementing New Laws
In a letter to U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked how the federal government intends to deal with states like Colorado and Washington that recently voted to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol. In the letter, Senator Leahy also suggested that federal legislation could be introduced to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana, at least in states that have legalized marijuana.
The letter, sent last week but reported on Thursday in the Huffington Post, notes that “[o]ne option would be to amend the Federal Controlled Substances Act to allow possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, at least in jurisdictions where it is legal under state law.”

~ alapoet ~
Toke of the Town editor Steve Elliott celebrating three years of high points and big hits

Three years ago today — actually, three years ago tonight, at 7:08 p.m. Pacific time — my THC-stained fingers hit the “Post” button for the first-ever story on Toke of the Town.

“The good thing about a free marketplace of ideas is,” I wrote, in the first sentence ever to appear on this site, “despite the best efforts of prohibitionists and their fear-mongering propaganda, the truth eventually prevails.”
More than 3,600 stories later — and with hundreds of joints, medibles, and bongloads littering my path — I’m still loving this gig, and judging by pageviews, so are close to half a million of you every month.

Opposing Views
Drug Czar Gil Kerlkikowske adamantly refuses to consider rational policy alternatives that don’t involve criminal penalties, according to the Marijuana Policy Project’s Morgan Fox

Marijuana Use Rises in 2011 While Alcohol and Prescription Drug Use Decline
 
In a press conference Monday morning, representatives from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced the release of the latest results of the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. As is their custom, the federal officials used the event — and the survey itself — as an opportunity to decry the use of marijuana in the United States and focused on perceived risk as a driving factor for increased use.
Marijuana use has slightly increased in the past year, while alcohol use has declined.

AllGov

A petition which aimed to persuade the Obama Administration to allow military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder to use medical marijuana was rejected by the White House.

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), wrote last month that marijuana is not a “benign drug,” and does not meet standards for safe or effective medicine, reports Patricia Kime at USA Today. (Apparently, “real” medicines are supposed to kill people in droves — you know, like all the poisons Big Pharma is peddling. Pot doesn’t do that.)
It’s particularly ironic, in a crazy-making sort of way, for the Drug Czar to answer any questions about legalizing marijuana for any purpose, since he is bound by law to oppose marijuana legalization. But if Kerli was feeling any of the irony, he didn’t let on; he was a good robot, mouthing meaningless platitudes on a dead stage.

ABC News

President Barack Obama made a habit of “intercepting” joints back in his high school days. Does he still have enough mojo to “tackle” the Drug War in a second term?

Obama’s been in the White House for three and a half years now, and searching for his actual position on marijuana is still roughly like searching for Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest. There are plenty of rumors that the guy has some actual beliefs on the subject, with no shortage of opinions as to what those might actually be, but nobody can actually prove anything.

Nobody, that is, except the dispensary operators and collective managers who’ve been raided during Obama’s term — even after both Obama himself (as a candidate in 2008), his Administration (the so-called Ogden Memo, 2009) and Attorney General Eric Holder (in 2009) all said the prosecution of individuals who are obeying their states’ medical marijuana laws “wouldn’t be a priority.”
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