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ARCHIVE: Norm Stamper, former Seattle Police Chief, reacts to the appointment of his successor, Chief Gil Kerlikowske, as the nation’s new “drug czar”.
California Marijuana Report will appear tomorrow in lieu of Cannabis Science.
Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 10:20 am | By: Radical Russ
Marijuana groups, consequently, were optimistic today that Kerlikowske would help usher in a new era of national drug policy, one they have hoped will accompany Obama’s presidency. It is precisely his pragmatism that they admire in Kerlikowske, whom they contrast starkly to the nation’s previous drug czar and their arch nemesis, John Walters.
“The differences between he and Mr. Walters can’t be made enough without getting into dissertation length,” NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre told me today over the phone. “Mr. Walters was a right-wing social ideologue with no law enforcement experience at all. He was Bill Bennett’s Mini-Me at best,” St. Pierre said, referencing the nation’s first drug czar, appointed by President George H.W. Bush. Walters formerly served as Bennett’s chief of staff.
Walters, St. Pierre says, conducted an ideological campaign against marijuana, making it a top priority. He campaigned against state-level marijuana initiatives and refused to meet with marijuana advocacy groups like NORML, according to St. Pierre.
“Gil, compared to Walters, is really night and day. Gil’s not going to be hanging out here at NORML at 4:20, but…we might actually get to meet the man, he might actually invite us into his public offices. It’s a competle tabula rasa with this guy.”
Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 7:20 pm | By: Dudemaster
Today the former Seattle Police Chief, Gil Kerlikowski was confirmed by the Senate as the nation’s new drug czar. He has the potential to sway the war against marijuana one way or another. However, I hope and believe we will finally get a pragmatic solutions-oriented approach to drug control rather than more drug war rhetoric that puts people in cages and stifles solutions.
Kerlikowski was confirmed as the State of Illinois debates the issue of medical marijuana. With religious leaders surprisingly siding on the side of those with the need for medicine, changes are imminent in the political home town and stomping grounds of President Obama.
During Chief Kerlikowske’s tenure as police chief Seattle voted in favor of Initiative 75 in 2003 which made marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority. The public sent a message with their vote that they did not want limited law enforcement resources spent on marijuana offenses.
This kind of behavior from an official is in absolute contrast to what American citizens are used to,
The [previous] drug czar, John Walters, wrote U.S. attorneys,
“No drug matches the threat posed by marijuana”
The kind of attitude that Kerlikowske brings to the office isn’t nearly as important as the amount of courage he will have to have in his back pocket. If Kerlikowski truly wants to do what’s right for his country, he will stand up to the prohibitionist politicians and help them embrace a new era of progressive strategy that’s based on SCIENCE over POLITICS.
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Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:43 pm | By: Radical Russ
Highlights of Drug Czar-designate Gil Kerlikowske’s opening statement:
It has been my privilege to lead two of this country’s largest police departments over a period of thirteen years. In my current role as the Chief of Police in Seattle, where I have led for nearly nine years, I have brought innovative solutions to the problems of drugs and crime, and their effect on society. A key element in my approach while in Seattle has involved enlisting the support of the entire community to reduce crime. While this approach is commonly referred to as, “community policing”, I prefer it be recognized as “policing”. The transparency and collaborative approach of this concept has ultimately led to the lowest drug use and serious crime rates in Seattle since 1967. My goal is to use similar principles in the development, articulation, and implementation of an effective, comprehensive, and coordinated national drug control strategy.
Upon confirmation, I will immediately coordinate with my colleagues in the federal government, as well as our counterparts at the state and local level, to ensure that the national drug control strategy is:
Balanced and comprehensive, based upon the best possible understanding of the drug threat, and incorporates a science-based approach to public policy;
Vigorously implemented through development of a national drug budget that contains proven, effective programs; and
Rigorously assessed and adapted to changing circumstances,
I will set a goal for the development of a strong, transparent monitoring system. While highly complex, performance evaluation of the national drug strategy is key to both validating and tracking the efficacy of the strategic goals and objectives established by the National Drug Control Strategy and the individual programs which are funded to support it.
Hey folks, when it comes to drug policy, if we’re going to have innovative solutions incorporating a science-based approach to public policy with proven, effective programs that are rigorously assessed by a strong transparent monitoring system… we win! Every study of public policy and marijuana has recommended its decriminalization. All the science on cannabis use proves it to be less harmful to users and society than alcohol and tobacco.
Since I have never lived in Seattle, I’ll admit to not knowing much about Gil Kerlikowske. So I was surprised to read this..
Ten months after R. Gil Kerlikowske became Seattle’s police chief, two of his officers arrived at the home of JoAnna McKee, where she ran a co-op giving medical marijuana to patients and teaching them to grow their own. Neighbors, the police told her, had been complaining. Soon, a “cease and desist” order was tacked to her door.
But instead of shutting down the Green Cross Patient Co-Op, Kerlikowske’s director of police-community partnerships made a suggestion: Move it from her West Seattle house to a commercial area. She found a nearby storefront, and under Washington state’s medical marijuana law, people could once again bring doctors’ orders to get relief from pain. “The police could have come in here like gangbusters,” McKee said. “But they didn’t. It was a case of let’s see whether we can work this out so everybody could get what they want.”
I can’t think of any other Police Chief (except Norm Stamper who has a blog here on NORML here) who would make such a reasoned approach to such a situation. More telling to us on a national level is how he handled “lowest priority”.
In 2003, Seattle residents placed on the ballot an initiative to make marijuana possession the Police Department’s lowest priority. John P. Walters, the Bush administration’s drug policy director, flew out to lobby aggressively against the initiative. Kerlikowske opposed it, too, but more mildly. The law was needless, he argued, because his officers already deemphasized marijuana arrests. It passed anyway.
“We believe it speaks to the man’s integrity that after it became law, he chose to follow it,” said a statement issued following Kerlikowske’s nomination by the producers of Seattle Hempfest, a two-day “protestival” that bills itself as the world’s largest gathering to support legalizing marijuana. City police are assigned to the event, where people smoke openly, but arrests are rare.
I can now see why many of our Northwest friends were pleased by the pick of Gil for the post.
Yet Kerlikowske is no get-tough-on-drugs zealot. When asked to help design a new police station as police chief in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Kerlikowske recommended making room for a library instead of a jail. He has long been a proponent of community policing, which he defines as “problem solving, decision making … and the utilizing and leveraging of the community.” And as police chief in Seattle, he instructed his officers to stand by during the annual HempFest, while thousands of civil disobedients smoked pot in the streets.
With this résumé, Kerlikowske might look like Bill O’Reilly’s worst nightmare (or Keith Olbermann’s secret crush). But Kerlikowske’s decisions were based on prudence and case-by-case analysis, not political ideology. In the case of the Port St. Lucie police station, Kerlikowske did not refuse to build a jail because of any anti-incarceration views but because “we [already] have a nice jail.” Though some dogmatists continued to decry community policing as “soft on crime,” Kerlikowske supported it—because community policing works.
Very promising indeed! One of big takeaways from this article is in the second paragraph above: politicians or appointed officials being fearful of appearing ’soft on crime’. So, what has being ‘hard on crime’ accomplished for us? Isn’t it time that we apply what actually works rather than our government being full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? (If you have to steal, steal from the best. Thanks Will!)
What have Legalization proponents like yourself gotten accomplished lately?
Drug reformers greeted the Mr Obama’s nomination of Gil Kerlikowske, at present the Seattle police chief, to serve as head of national drug control policy as indicating a likely switch in emphasis from enforcement to treatment. “The success of our efforts to reduce the flow of drugs is largely dependent on our ability to reduce demand for them,” the drug tsar nominee said. As the debate intensifies, some experts are offering radical solutions, including decriminalisation, at least in the case of marijuana. The anti-prohibitionists include civil libertarians, former drug war enforcers and some legislators.
Our economic argument begins to take hold in the mind of the general public.
The US spends $1,400 a -second in the war on drugs, according to a recent -Harvard study, while the savings and revenue that could be generated by legalising narcotics would equal a 10th of Barack Obama’s -fiscal stimulus plan. With neighbouring Mexico descending towards the -status of a narco-state and with US jails crammed with small-time drug offenders, experts in the field have launched a debate on whether a 40-year crackdown, and the more than $1,000bn (£716bn €773bn) that has been spent on it, has had any impact on -narcotics abuse or on the violent trade that feeds it.
Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior economics lecturer at -Harvard and free-market -libertarian, estimated in a paper published in December that the drugs war in the US alone cost authorities $44.1bn a year. Legalising all banned drugs, in contrast, would raise $32.7bn annually in taxation.
And even the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, has to admit that incarceration and state sanction murders will not end the drug trade.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, acknowledged in Vienna that the “world drug problem has been contained but not solved”. However, an unintended consequence of international drug control efforts had been the creation of a “criminal black market of staggering proportions”. While opposing calls for the legalisation of narcotics, Mr Costa said: “When mafias can buy elections, candidates, political parties – in a word, power – the consequences can only be highly destabilising. While ghettos burn, west Africa is under attack, drug cartels threaten central America and drug money penetrates bankrupt financial institutions.”
That’s right, The head of the UN office on Drugs and Crime said that the War on Drugs is destabilizing nations because of their vast cash flow and the power it brings.
Not so long ago even mentioning Legalizing marijuana brought scorn and derision (Russ himself was told by liberal talk giant Ed Schultz that legalization was a “wacky” subject). But now it’s being taken seriously by NBC, FOX, and a horde of print media.
It’s all because of your willingness to put your time, money and name on the line. You have made this movement respectable, now we must make the reform movement powerful. Join your local chapter, write your local representatives, make a donation. Those who oppose us are working hard to put you behind bars and ruin your chance at a successful life, now what are you going to do about it?
It’s often said that if you live long enough you’ll see everything. I suppose Joe Biden has officially seen it all.
When Vice President Biden… formally announce[d] the nomination of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as the new Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, he [was] also … formally downgrading the office from Cabinet-level status to non-Cabinet level status. Interestingly, Biden himself criticized a similar move by then-President George HW Bush in 1989…
Biden, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, criticized the elder Bush’s position, telling the Washington Post in 1989 that it would lower the profile of the drug war.
I guess the old un-winnable war is just not that important anymore. Nope, the new hotness is that Biden is a “veteran” of the war and knows it all.
The Obama administration “is fortunate to have a vice president with an unrivaled breadth of knowledge about federal drug policy,” says an administration official. “Never before has there been someone with this level of knowledge who is as close to the president as Vice President Biden.”
It’s unmistakable that the longest war is beginning to show it’s age, even amongst it’s strongest supporters.
EXTRA CREDIT: Joe Biden was the man who “invented” the phrase “Drug Czar”. I guess we can credit him for the name of every position in charge of a hopeless effort like the newly proposed “Car Czar”.
So you think Gill is all about the decrim? Think that because of his son he’s gonna get his steel backbone back after having to sell out to those liberals in Seattle? Well read this article and get some insight on this most important position that will have the most impact on the Marijuana Community.
If Kerlikowske’s record is any indication, he is just the man to clean up this mess. From a personal standpoint, he has experience with the issue: A son from a previous marriage has a history of arrests, some of them drug-related. (This could lead to some awkward questions at his confirmation hearing.) Professionally, his record of lowering crime rates gives him instant credibility. Speaking approvingly of Kerlikowske, Barry McCaffrey, drug czar under Bill Clinton and a retired general, told Fox News: “If you really want to understand the drug issue, go talk to any police officer with more than five years on the force.”
Yet Kerlikowske is no get-tough-on-drugs zealot. When asked to help design a new police station as police chief in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Kerlikowske recommended making room for a library instead of a jail. He has long been a proponent of community policing, which he defines as “problem solving, decision making … and the utilizing and leveraging of the community.” And as police chief in Seattle, he instructed his officers to stand by during the annual HempFest, while thousands of civil disobedients smoked pot in the streets.
Gill is a committed prohibitionist, but he’s pragmatic not dogmatic. He’s shown respect for the legalization movement by enforcing the laws that are handed to him and not ignoring them to fit his own ideology. In order to succeed legalization needs an opportunity to work and Gill may just be the man to respect the law enough to give it that chance. We just have to do the hard work needed to seize the moment given to us.
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
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don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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