7625 COHA Report, Obama’s Drug Policy: Yet Another Broken Promise

A Promise for Change

Obama entered the Oval Office promising to change national drug policy. He proposed altering the current U.S. approach, suggesting that the war on drugs be re-categorized as a public health issue. Obama’s unprecedented admission to previous cocaine use[i] led to the hope that his stance on narcotics would be more understanding and compassionate than the war on drugs initiated by  Nixon  in 1971. For example, upon taking office in 2009, Obama’s newly appointed drug czar Gil Kerlikowske claimed that the war on drugs had ended. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in May 2009, Kerlikowske observed that: “Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ … people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”[ii]

At the beginning of  Obama’s presidency, as well as today, the United States had priorities other than revising  U.S. drug policy. With the economy in crisis and the Middle East in  uproar, drug policy has taken a justifiable backseat.  Drug violence has dramatically worsened south of the border since President Felipe Calderón took office in Mexico.  Also, with the recent determination by the federal government that marijuana remains a dangerous drug “with no accepted medical use,” both inside and outside drug-associatedsources are increasingly pressuring the administration to take definitive action. Obama’s unwillingness to develop significant changes in drug policy has therefore become a source of tension in Washington.