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Input: âIt forced the office to take a policy position that it may or may not agree to â Michael Botticelli  the former director of the drug czarâs office  told HuffPost. â[It] hamstrings you into a policy position that might be the policy of the day but that might change.â
The statute also made answering questions about marijuana policy complicated. When  Botticelli  was a deputy within the office  Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced legislation to remove the by-then-controversial language on marijuana. The bill went nowhere.  Botticelli  struggled even to answer questions on the subject.
Operating within these political and legal constraints   Botticelli  and others adopted more nuanced approaches to their work. The office pushed to obtain more federal funding for treatment. It supported states that sought to route those addicted to illegal substances like opioids away from the criminal justice system and into treatment.  Botticelli  supported the Justice Departmentâs efforts to shed the more onerous drug war era initiatives such as requiring mandatory minimum sentences for even low-level drug possession.
Later in that interview   Botticelli  was asked about legalizing marijuana  not just decriminalizing penalties for its use.  He  said  he  was against statesâ commercializing the drug. âIt becomes an addiction to  unfortunately  a tax revenue thatâs often based on bad public health policy â  he  said.  His  predecessor had had similar reservations about outright legalizing marijuana.
 The closest Botticelli  came to addressing the decriminalization issue directly occurred when District of Columbia residents voted to ease restrictions on marijuana use. âI might not agree about legalization  but I do agree with our own ability to spend our own money the way that we want to â  he  said.
Neither  Botticelli  nor  his  office would go much further than that during the eight years of the Obama presidency. Had they done so  they would have incurred blowback from both parties in Congress and alienated drug prevention advocates who oppose marijuana use. More importantly  the controversy would likely have distracted from the more critical opioid epidemic. That crisis ended up driving home the argument for a public health approach to drug addiction.

Officials In Obama's Drug Czar Office Wanted To Decriminalize Marijuana