Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) tore into deputy drug czar Michael Botticelli on Tuesday, highlighting federal drug policy's failure to address the substances "ravaging our country" while still considering marijuana to be as dangerous as heroin.
Speaking during a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform focused on the Obama administration's marijuana policy, Cohen urged drug policy officials to rethink marijuana's classification as a Schedule 1 substance, which the Drug Enforcement Administration considers "the most dangerous class of drugs." Other Schedule 1 substances include heroin, LSD and ecstasy, while methamphetamine and cocaine fall under the Schedule II definition.
"It is ludicrous, absurd, crazy to have marijuana in the same level as heroin," Cohen said. "Ask the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, if you could. Nobody dies from marijuana. People die from heroin."
Hoffman, the Academy Award-winning actor, died Sunday after an apparent heroin overdose. Police officials said he was found with a syringe still in his arm.
"Every second that we spend in this country trying to enforce marijuana laws is a second that we're not enforcing heroin laws. And heroin and meth are the two drugs that are ravaging our country," Cohen continued. "And every death, including Mr. Hoffman's, is partly the responsibility of the federal government's drug priorities for not putting total emphasis on the drugs that kill, that cause people to be addicted and have to steal to support their habit."
Cohen warned that by not acknowledging that marijuana is less dangerous than heroin and other substances, as DEA Chief Michele Leonhart has refused to do, the administration is undermining its own efforts to prevent drug abuse.
"Heroin is getting into the arms of young people," Cohen said. "When we put marijuana on the same level as heroin and crack and LSD and meth and crack and cocaine, we are telling young people not to listen to adults about the ravages and problems, and they don't listen because they know you're wrong."
Later in the hearing, Cohen grilled Botticelli over the dangers of heroin use versus that of smoking pot.
"You can't name one person who's died from a overdose of marijuana can you?"
"Not to my knowledge," Botticelli replied.
"Do you know people, possibly, heard of people who smoke marijuana, who are corporate giants? Who run banks? Run major corporations?" Cohen asked.
"Yes sir, but I also know.. a substantial number of people who also have gone one to develop significant disorders who have smoked marijuana. Again 1 in 9 people who try marijuana develop a dependency and we know that particularly those kids who use it early.."
"Kids shouldn't use it," Cohen said, cutting off Botticelli. "Kids shouldn't use it ever. And at age 18 people shouldn't be arrested for it. Maybe it should be 21.. but the fact is, we need to put our priorities toward heroin and meth."
Hoffman's death has put the spotlight back on heroin use, an epidemic that's been overlooked in recent years. As AFP reported Monday, overdose deaths rose 45 percent from 2006 to 2010. Meanwhile, an often lethal combination of heroin and Fentanyl has made its way through the mid-Atlantic, leaving a string of overdose deaths in its wake.
When asked by Cohen how much of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's budget goes toward treating heroin addiction, Botticelli said the administration doesn't divide the budget based on specific drugs, but focuses on preventing overall drug use.
"Isn't that a mistake when people die form heroin in great numbers, that the Vermont governor spends his entire State of the State on heroin use? And we don't distinguish and try to save people's lives?" Cohen said. "That's when you knock people over at the corner store. It's not to get money to buy a donut 'cause you're high, it's to buy heroin because you're hooked."
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Dan Riffle, the Marijuana Policy Project's director of federal policies, criticized Botticelli's responses to Cohen's questioning.
"It was made abundantly clear that the drug czar's office either does not have its facts straight on marijuana or is unwilling to acknowledge them," Riffle said in a statement. "If someone cannot simply agree that marijuana is less harmful than drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, they are not fit to be overseeing our nation's drug policy."
Before You Go
“I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be," he said back in 2000 in an interview with Rolling Stone. "We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment.”
He's since spoken about the issue of marijuana and drug prohibition a number of times. Last year, he appeared in the documentary, "Breaking the Taboo," where he argued that the war on drugs has been a failure.
“I don't want to promote that but I also don't want to put people in jail who make a mistake," Paul said. "There are a lot of young people who do this and then later on in their twenties they grow up and get married and they quit doing things like this. I don't want to put them in jail and ruin their lives."
"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Robertson said in an interview with The New York Times in 2012. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."
Robertson has made similar remarks on his "700 Club" show before, but the Times, like many others, perhaps felt they must have misheard him.
“[T]o me, marijuana is no different than wine," he said in an interview with High Times. "It's a drug of choice. It's meant to alter your current state -- and that's not a bad thing. It's ridiculous that marijuana is still illegal. We're still fighting for it ... It comes down to individual decision-making. There are millions of people who smoke pot on a social basis and don't become criminals. So stop with that argument -- it doesn't work.”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
From his campaign platform:
"By managing marijuana like alcohol and tobacco - regulating, taxing and enforcing its lawful use - America will be better off. The billions saved on marijuana interdiction, along with the billions captured as legal revenue, can be redirected against the individuals committing real crimes against society."
“Marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry," he said in an interview with High Times. "My wife says, and I agree with her, that what would be really great for Maine would be to legalize dope completely and set up dope stores the way that there are state-run liquor stores.”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
While marijuana has been made legal for various uses in a number of states, the Obama administration continues to enforce federal laws across the nation. This has led to numerous raids of marijuana-based businesses, as well as prosecutions of growers and other people involved in pot.
"I think it's about time we legalize marijuana," he said. "We have to make a choice in this country. We either put people who are smoking marijuana behind bars or we legalize it, but this little game we're playing in the middle is not helping us, it is not helping Mexico and it is causing massive violence on our southern border."
"Decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Portugal's 10 year experiment shows clearly that enough is enough. It is time to end the war on drugs worldwide. We must stop criminalising drug users. Health and treatment should be offered to drug users - not prison. Bad drugs policies affect literally hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities across the world. We need to provide medical help to those that have problematic use - not criminal retribution."
"I don't tend to say this publicly, but we can see it's a curative thing. The narcotics industry is also enormous. It funds terrorism and - this is a huge problem in America - fuels the foreign gangs," he said. "More than 85 percent of men incarcerated in America are on drug-related offences. It costs $40,000 a year for every prisoner. If they were really serious about the economy there would be a sensible discussion about legalization."
While Obama and his administration have responded to state marijuana reforms by saying they must enforce federal laws against marijuana, the president has the power to reschedule the drug, which would allow federal authorities to shift resources away from a prohibitive approach.
"However, I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts," Palin said. "If somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society."While Obama has spoken repeatedly about not being interested in prosecuting small-time marijuana users, he hasn't done anything to prevent them from being busted by law enforcement in states where the drug is still illegal.
In 2012, the former president said he was fine with state legalization efforts, though he himself doesn't necessary support legalizing the drug.
“As president 35 years ago I called for decriminalizing -- but not legalizing -- the possession of marijuana,” Carter said. “Since then, U.S. drug policies have been very horrible to our own country because of an explosion in prison populations.”
"I don't have a problem with states experimenting with this sort of thing I think that's the role of states," Cuccinelli said, according to Ryan Nobles of WWBT.
“The proof will be in the policy. The war on drugs has gotten a really bad rap, when you ask people if they support the war on drugs they say no ... [Obama's] budget once again has the same old drug warrior policy ... I reject the assumption that everybody who is using drugs needs treatment or is an addict and needs to get arrested ... Not all drug use is abuse.”
He's kept up the fight for drug policy reform since.
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
“We've been fighting the war on drugs since the '60s. And guess what? Trillions of dollars later, we are losing," Sharpton said during a segment on MSNBC. "When you look at the disparities in sentencing drug offenders, hasn't this kind of injustice undermined the legitimacy of our criminal justice system?”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
Tancredo continued, “The arguments against marijuana today are the same as the arguments against liquor years ago.”
Years later, the former congressman agreed to smoke pot on camera with a documentary filmmaker, a deal that he later backed out of.