What Obama's Drug Czar Said In Portland About Legalizing Pot

Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Policy, is in Oregon this week visiting drug treatment centers as part of President Obama's upcoming National Drug Control Strategy. Speaking this morning at Oregon Partnership, a nonprofit with services that include drug prevention programs and a crisis line for suicide intervention, Kerlikowske praised his host's outreach to veterans with substance abuse problems. Oregon Partnership has fielded more than 1,200 veteran calls to its crisis line since March 2009, about 300 of which were alcohol related.

All very nice. But we wondered what Kerlikowske, who has said the drug war isn't working, thinks about the growing movement in Oregon, California and elsewhere to legalize marijuana.

After lightheartedly voicing his hope of avoiding any marijuana-related questions, Kerlikowske, the former police chief in Seattle, said neither he nor Obama believe in legalization. He elaborated that legalization being sold as an end to violence and cure to budget deficits, as it has been recently in California, should be met with skepticism.