DE-ESCALATING THE DRUG WAR

Obama's Pick To Head ONDCP Is Better Than Your Average Drug
Czar

President Obama caught even close observers off-guard with his
mid-February nomination for the nation's new drug czar, R. Gil
Kerlikowske.

Kerlikowske, 59, Seattle's police chief, with nearly 40 years in law
enforcement behind his badge, will direct the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), pending Senate approval.

But Kerlikowske isn't just any urban police chief. He's the top cop of
a city with a progressive reputation on several drug-related matters,
including needle-exchange programs and marijuana possession laws.

Kerlikowske has a reputation as a levelheaded and effective leader,
having served as police chief in three other cities--Buffalo, N.Y.,
Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce, Fla.--all of which recorded decreases
in serious and violent crime during his tenure.

Although Kerlikowske's opinions on drug policies reforms are still
largely unknown, he differs from the last drug czar, John Walters, in
many ways.

For one, the police chief has not tried to interfere with Seattle's
needle-exchange programs. For another, Kerlikowske is on the record as
someone who believes that safer, healthier communities require
stricter gun controls; the restoration of voting rights to
ex-prisoners (as well as re-entry programs); community-involved
policing; and alternatives to sentencing for nonviolent drug
offenders, especially in the form of drug courts.

In his eight years in Seattle, Kerlikowske has shown interest in
outreach programs in neighborhoods with high concentrations of drug
users. In addition, under his tenure, local police have largely left
alone Seattle's medical marijuana users and providers, as well as the
hundreds of thousands of attendees at Seattle's annual Hempfest, the
largest such event in the country.

And in what could be the most controversial portion of his Senate
confirmation, Kerlikowske let stand a directive that marijuana-related
arrests should be the lowest priority for the Seattle Police
Department, in accordance with a successful 2003 Seattle voter
initiative, I-75.

"He recognizes that we can't arrest our way out of these problems,"
says Alison Chinn Holcomb, drug policy director for the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington. "Seattle is a leader in
exploring alternatives to reliance on criminal sanctions as the
primary response to drug use and abuse, and Chief Kerlikowske has been
someone that has allowed that exploration to go forward."

By contrast, while directing the ONDCP, Walters made it clear he
wasn't interested in considering alternatives to the status quo.
"Whatever challenges await, President-elect Obama will not have to
reinvent the wheel when it comes to keeping a lid on the use of
illegal drugs," Walters wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Dec.
5. "Our policy has been a success--although that success is one of
Washington's best kept secrets."

But the National Academy on Public Administration (NAPA) disputes that
assessment. In its recently released Senate-commissioned report, the
nonpartisan coalition found that Walters and his predecessors
consistently relied on questionable, single-source data and
unscientific research in the ONDCP's media campaigns.

NAPA also reported that, under Walters, the ONDCP had a
disproportionate number of GOP political appointees and people working
supervisory roles. (Even potential interns were asked how they voted
in the presidential elections during interviews, according to NAPA).
If confirmed, Kerlikowske will inherit a poorly staffed office. (More
than 25 percent of the ONDCP's employees left in January.)

Ethan Nadelmann, director of the national drug policy reform
organization Drug Policy Alliance, says Kerlikowske is up to the task.
"Kerlikowske isn't going to be in this alone," he says. "President
Obama has made a very public commitment to certain reforms, including
his support for federal funding of needle exchange and an end to the
crack/powder cocaine disparity."

Attorney General Eric Holder, who worked with Kerlikowske from 1998
until 2000 at the Department of Justice, announced in late February
that the Obama administration would not support continued Drug
Enforcement Agency raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.

"Where [Kerlikowske is] going to be stuck is what to do about
Afghanistan and Mexico, among many other countries dealing with high
levels of violence and drug trafficking," Nadelmann says.

Kerlikowske is also likely to stumble if he tries to address racial
profiling, disproportionate incarceration or the police brutality that
have been intrinsic to the drug war.

Although his personal outreach to black community leaders has been
noteworthy, some critics say Kerlikowske has done little to lessen the
frequency of racial profiling and gang violence. In fact, in 2007, the
Seattle NAACP called for his resignation, accusing Kerlikowske of
covering up instances of racial profiling, false arrest and abuse at
the hands of Seattle police officers.

Since I-75 passed, the ACLU's Holcomb says the number of whites
arrested and referred for prosecution by the Seattle Police Department
has dropped significantly, whereas African Americans have not fared as
well. Black residents make up only 7.8 percent of Seattle's
population, but they were arrested for marijuana "incidents" at
roughly 12 times the rate of non-Latino whites in 2006.

Any optimism should be cautious and considered, Holcomb says: "This is
the most hopeful nomination that we've seen in a long time, but that
doesn't mean that we should get too comfortable."