When Pres­i­dent Barack Obama appointed for­mer Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton police chief Gil Ker­likowske to lead the Office of National Drug Con­trol Pol­icy, activists sup­port­ing mar­i­juana pol­icy reform were cheered by the news, how­ever briefly.

Kerlikowske’s appoint­ment came on the heels of Attor­ney Gen­eral Eric Holder’s announce­ment that Amer­ica would not longer pros­e­cute patients who are legally pre­scribed the herb in states that have passed laws allow­ing med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­juana. Holder’s announce­ment fell in-line with Obama’s repeated-yet-quiet endorse­ment of mar­i­juana for med­ical use as “entirely appro­pri­ate” for states in which a major­ity of vot­ers approve.

Activists were given even more rea­son to hope when Ker­likowske adver­tised the end of America’s “drug war,” say­ing he would seek to empha­size harm reduc­tion poli­cies over jail­ing those afflicted with drug addictions.

How­ever, that hope was soon to fade.

Even though Kerlikowske’s for­mer city is famously tol­er­ant of mar­i­juana — which is less harm­ful and less addic­tive than America’s most pop­u­lar, legal intox­i­cant, alco­hol — that did not stop America’s new drug czar from demean­ing the president’s posi­tion on med­i­c­i­nal use, telling a crowd in Fresno, Cal­i­for­nia on Wednes­day that mar­i­juana is “dan­ger­ous” and “has no med­ical ben­e­fit,” accord­ing to The Fresno Bee.

He has no med­ical train­ing and did not qual­ify his state­ments with any opin­ions from med­ical pro­fes­sion­als. [ … ]

Ker­likowske was dis­cussing “Oper­a­tion SOS — or, “Save Our Sierra” — which has been under­way in Cal­i­for­nia for the last 11 days.

“More than 314,000 plants were uprooted in 70 gar­dens — num­bers expected to rise as the enforce­ment action con­tin­ues,” the paper reported. “Agents also seized $41,000 in cash, 26 firearms and three vehicles.”

When Ker­likowske was announced as Obama’s choice for drug czar, the orga­niz­ers of Seattle’s famous annual Hempfest wel­comed the move.

“Seat­tle Hempfest has enjoyed a good rela­tion­ship with the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment for 18 years, 8 of those dur­ing Mr. Kerlikowske’s tenure as Chief of Police,” they said in a pub­lished state­ment. “We have always found the SPD to be extremely pro­fes­sional and guided by the moti­va­tion to ensure the safety of the pub­lic over enforce­ment of Mar­i­juana laws.”

Cal­i­for­nia is one of 13 states to legal­ize mar­i­juana for med­i­c­i­nal use. Other states, like Wash­ing­ton, have passed laws pro­vid­ing an affir­ma­tive med­ical defense against state pos­ses­sion charges for patients whose doc­tors have rec­om­mended the herb to alle­vi­ate symp­toms of var­i­ous ill­nesses. Mar­i­juana is still ille­gal under fed­eral law, which pro­vides no med­ical exceptions.

The plant can pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant relief to suf­fer­ers of many chronic and life-threatening ill­nesses, such as can­cer, AIDS, glau­coma, arthri­tis, mus­cu­lar dys­tro­phy and numer­ous others.

Full story at http://rawstory.com

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