60 Minutes, December 13, 2015
"Top drug official Michael Botticelli says the old war on drugs is all wrong, and wants to refocus the country's drug policy
After forty years and a trillion dollars, the nation has little to show for its war on drugs. Prisons are beyond crowded and there's a new outbreak in the heroin epidemic. If it's time for a change, it would be hard to find a leader more different than Michael Botticelli. The president's new Director of National Drug Control Policy isn't a cop. He's lucky he didn't go to jail himself. And we knew that things had changed the first time we used the nickname that comes with his job, the 'drug czar.'
Michael Botticelli: It's actually a title that I don't like.
Scott Pelley: Why?
Michael Botticelli: Because I think it connotes this old "war on drugs" focus to the work that we do. It portrays that we are clinging to kind of failed policies and failed practices in the past.
Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the way we have waged the war on drugs for more than 40 years has been all wrong?" Read more
For resources to speak with youth about the dangers of drug abuse, click here.
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