Gil Kerlikowske criticized the "war on drugs" to the foreign press this week. Kerlikowske, the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, believes that tackling the crisis from a public health angle is the common sense answer.
"We’ve been talking about a war on drugs for over 40 years," Kerlikowske said. "I don’t think the American public sees a huge level of success – not that there hasn’t been some – in a war on drugs," Kerlikowske said.
"Calling it a war really limits your resources. And, essentially, the greatest resource in a war is some type of force. Looking at this as both a public safety problem and a public health problem seems to make a lot more sense," Kerlikowske said.
"I know, in talking about these policies with my colleagues, former colleagues – police chiefs and sheriffs and the directors of state police authorities throughout the country – they have become quite frustrated at recycling people through a criminal justice system."
Kerlikowske was once the chief of police in Seattle. He believes that there are economic benefits to treating addiction like an illness instead of a crime.
"We also know that – incarceration is very expensive, and that if there are treatment programs – and we know there are – that can be successful in treating drug addiction and keeping communities safe, that those treatment programs are about one-half the cost of incarceration."
