Gil Kerlikowske: The Drug Czar’s Living Obituary

The remarkable man who encouraged legislation by doing absolutely nothing.

After four years at the helm of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske has been quietly reassigned. His reign as drug czar witnessed the most prodigious gain in marijuana legislation worldwide, despite Kerlikowske’s donning a conventionally conservative war on drugs stance. America’s sixth drug czar is now gone, so it’s only appropriate that Weedist eulogize his departure with an obituary.

Gil Kerlikowske, remarkably unremarkable

Kerlikowske was an ambitious man. He went from policing the state of Florida to overseeing community police grants for the White House. After cultivating his federal network to an appropriate scale, Kerlikowske returned to the blue cloth as Chief of Police in four different cities. His longest and final tenure was in Seattle, a city representing the forefront of cannabis legislation.

Kerlikowske’s Seattle tenure experienced some hiccups: a murder attributed to police inactivity during the Mardi Gras riots, tension with the NAACP (standard fare for the police chief of a city obsessed with gentrification) and a handful of critical ACLU missives. Overall, his tenure in Seattle was remarkably unremarkable.

One Seattle writer observed that Kerlikowske’s career in Seattle wasn’t marked by what he did, but by what he didn’t do. This Costanza-style approach came to define Kerly’s politics.

In 2009, Kerlikowske was named as the head of the ONDCP, replacing Dubya-appointed Republican John P. Walters as drug czar. Cannabis advocates expressed reserved optimism toward the new drug czar, hoping Seattle’s progressive denizens affected Czar Kerly. But his inner Floridian would not allow such fortuitous influence to take hold.

Kerly positioned himself for a hard-line stance as czar, but only enforced his stance in media quotes. The czar became a bizarro Teddy Roosevelt caricature: walking hard while brandishing a palm-sized twig. Kerly spoke against medical marijuana, but looked the other away as the MMJ community flourished. He retired the War on Drugs from American drug policy lexicon, then countered a global report claiming the War on Drugs is failing (effectively re-embracing the phrase).

It is the unquestioning role of a cannabis advocate to decry any czar that doesn’t immediately work toward decriminalization or legalization as a conservative, a panderer and a propagandist. Kerlikowske the rhetorician certainly fit the description. But Kerly, the inactive Roosevelt, twig in hand, sat inactive and prevented his promises from taking form.

For that, we thank ye, sir Kerly. Stateside legislation would have been a headache if you weren’t so remarkably unremarkable. Your restraint (or inaction) won’t be soon forgotten.

R.I.P. drug czar No. 6. Best of luck with your demotion.

-Weedist