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. [ … ]

» Read more: Obama’s drug czar: Mar­i­juana ‘has no med­ical benefit’