Gateway Gil - The Man With the Flaming Pants!
This story is by Bruce Ramsey of the Seattle Times and is about Gil Kerlikowske’s meeting with the paper’s editorial board.
The Editorial Board’s meeting with Gil Kerlikowske turned into a big deal. Kerlikowske, the former police chief here in Seattle, is now director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In other words, he’s the “Drug Czar” — a title he made fun of in our meeting when he responded to a question by saying, “If I knew the answer, I’d be more than a czar. I’d be king.”
Ha ha. Russian monarchy, European monarchy, all we need now are some Sultans… Hey, I have an idea! How about we refer to our democratically elected and bureaucratically appointed executives by terms appropriate for a democratic republic?
I couldn’t think of anything Kerlikowske could do to squelch the freedom of The Seattle Times, and I never interpreted his visit that way. The folks that did were well-meaning, and regarding cannabis legalization I agree with them. But Kerlikowske was not bullying us, or threatening us, or attacking our freedom to air our opinions. As it turned out, he was cordial and almost laid-back. At one point he steered the conversation to prescription drug abuse, which had nothing to do with our editorial. When we asked him about legal marijuana he did disagree with us, but so gently that some of the attendees wondered why he had come at all.
Because it is his job to oppose all efforts at marijuana legalization for commercial, industrial, recreational, spiritual, and medical purposes no matter what. God Himself could appear in a brilliant flash of light on every TV channel simultaneously and command mankind to make use of the hemp seed (actually, He already did) and fully legalize cannabis use and Gateway Gil would still be compelled to tell you that would be a bad idea.
Like many powerful people, he was careful what he said, responding to some questions without answering them as they were cast. For example, my first question to him related the costs of marijuana prohibition, and ended with the question of whether they were “worth it” (which I think of as “the Madeleine Albright question”). He didn’t answer it.
Because there is no reasonable answer that begins with “yes”. 52% of the arrests in the War on Drugs are for marijuana. 46% of all arrests in the War on Drugs are for just marijuana possession. Taxation and regulation of marijuana would reap about $15 billion in law enforcement savings and tax revenues. You’d be hard-pressed to identify $15 billion worth of harm being prevented by arresting marijuana consumers, especially considering there are 25 million of us consuming cannabis now under prohibition.
Later, when I asked him whether the War on Drugs was a success, he did a double-take: Didn’t I know that one of his first acts as Drug Czar was to declare the War on Drugs over? Hadn’t I seen that?
No. I thought the War on Drugs was still on.
“The War on Drugs is over,” he said. “We’ve stopped looking at it as a criminal justice issue alone.”
“Alone” is the key word in that statement. The Obama administration’s “middle position” on drugs that leans toward treatment but requires penalties also, he said, because about half the users who go into treatment “have to be encouraged.”
It’s even worse for marijuana consumers. 57% of all admissions to treatment for marijuana are forced there by the criminal justice system. 37% of people in “marijuana rehab” hadn’t even used cannabis in the month prior to admission and another 16% had used cannabis three times or fewer. We “have to be encouraged” because most of us do not have a problem that needs rehabilitation.
Kerlikowske offered several arguments against legalization. At one point he cited the RAND Corp. study as debunking the idea that a state would make money by selling cannabis through the liquor stores. I haven’t read the study, but the summary of it tells me the study was about how much legalizing marijuana in one state would affect the revenues of the Mexican drug cartels. It said it wouldn’t affect them a lot because they have other states and other drugs. But judging from the press release, the study does assume that if a state legalized cannabis, the Mexican drug cartels would lose the cannabis trade in that state. In other words, it assumes the very thing Kerlikowske doubted.
Exactly. The RAND Study was cited by every prohibitionist who wanted to disparage Secretary of State Clinton’s remarks that 60% of the Mexican gangs’ income derived from marijuana trafficking. In denying that the figure was 60%, they ignored the conclusion that the figure was not 0%. They ignored the self-evident facts that it is much more difficult for criminals to compete in a legal market and that a legal market would provide goods at a much lower price that makes criminal trafficking unprofitable.
At other points in our conversation, Kerlikowske argued against legalization because it would increase usage by a dramatic amount. But if it did that, the state would be making money off it, would it not? (I not sure it would increase use by a dramatic amount, but I think it would increase it some, but that the possible negative effects would be hugely outweighed by the reducton in financial and human costs of prohibition.)
Would marijuana use increase? Sure, but would marijuana users increase? Who isn’t smoking pot now who would want to once it were legal? I think that those of us who are toking will certainly toke more as it becomes more affordable and available. But I think there will be few new regular users. Those who haven’t tried it may try it out of curiosity and a few of them might stick with it, but I think most people who wanted to try it already have.
But would it be bad if current tokers used more? It depends. I believe that tokers who can’t get any cannabis now are often substituting other drugs and alcohol in cannabis’ place. With more available cannabis, there would be less use of other drugs and alcohol which would be an overall good.
The big question of the hour was about federal response if the Washington Legislature did pass Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson’s legalization bill, H.B. 1550. Kerlikowske reminded us that the feds had agreed not to interfere with medical marijuana in those states that had passed laws allowing it (even though he thought medical marijuana was “an attempt to make it legal…by calling it medicine”). But what if the state law legalized it for general adult use?
“I can’t answer that,” he said. “That would be up to the Department of Justice.”
Really it would be up to one man: Barack Obama. Of course, he’s the man who appointed Gil Kerlikowske.
I don’t know that a President Obama facing a contentious re-election battle in 2012 really wants to do anything to anger a progressive base in the Pacific Northwest in a state with 12 Electoral Votes. I’d rather have seen California and its 55 EVs pushing this battle, but perhaps by election time there will also be a California (and other states) pushing a legalization platform.
However, if Gateway Gil thinks medical marijuana is just a legalization ruse but the feds won’t interfere, why should they interfere if we dispense with the ruse? Is the message here that we need to be sneaky about it? We’ll let you legalize, so long as you call it medicine?
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“With more available cannabis, there would be less use of other drugs and alcohol which would be an overall good.”
For whom? There are lots and lots of reasons why cannabis prohibition has lasted so long. One of them, surely, must be that a handful of powerful people in important places would lose money and/or power if it were stopped.