--- title: New Barack Obama Drug Policy Doesn't Change on Marijuana description: A new emphasis on treatment and addiction, but no change on marijuana canonical: https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/ author: Alex Altman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-10T17:15:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:01:09.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: New Barack Obama Drug Policy Doesn't Change on Marijuana og:description: A new emphasis on treatment and addiction, but no change on marijuana og:url: https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640a0e1d63a0e5c7/69869b3f35ba6f4843c02f89/ap313948209170.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Michael Botticelli og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: New Barack Obama Drug Policy Doesn't Change on Marijuana twitter:description: A new emphasis on treatment and addiction, but no change on marijuana twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640a0e1d63a0e5c7/69869b3f35ba6f4843c02f89/ap313948209170.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama's New Drug Policy Looks a Lot Like the Old One > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Alaska Next In Line To Make Pot Legal? [Watch (HLS stream): Alaska Next In Line To Make Pot Legal?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/R1uoe4HC.m3u8) (1:53)  _Published 2014-01-09. With the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, advocates in Alaska say they already have enough signatures to get it on the ballot for August._  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Jul 10, 2014 5:15 PM UTC  Michael Botticelli, left, acting director of National Drug Control Policy, speaks to community leaders in Roanoke, Va., on July 9, 2014 Michael Botticelli, left, acting director of National Drug Control Policy, speaks to community leaders in Roanoke, Va., on July 9, 2014 Erica Yoon—AP  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Jul 10, 2014 5:15 PM UTC The Obama Administration unveiled an updated drug policy Thursday, including a new emphasis on treatment and addiction programs and a push to curb abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers. Michael Botticelli, the acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, framed the retooled strategy as a shift away from the punitive policies that have produced record incarceration rates. “Our prisons and jails are already overcrowded with people who desperately need compassionate, evidence-based treatment for the disease of addiction—not a jail cell,” Botticelli said in a statement before an event in Roanoke, Va. Among the elements of the [plan](http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/policy-and-research/ndcs%5F2014.pdf) are expanded access to drug education, treating drug addition as a health issue rather than a criminal one, and a push to divert nonviolent drug offenders into treatment rather than prisons. It promotes tackling the twin scourges of heroin and prescription opiates, whose abuse rates have climbed. The Administration’s call for criminal-justice reform reflects widespread agreement, inside the White House and out, that the war on drugs has been a misbegotten [failure](http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public%5Fcontent/politics/general%5Fpolitics/august%5F2013/82%5Fsay%5Fu%5Fs%5Fnot%5Fwinning%5Fwar%5Fon%5Fdrugs). The Department of Justice has emphasized the need to overhaul its approach from being “tough on crime” to being “smart on crime.” The updated policy is a continuation of that strategy. “The plan we released today calls for reforming our criminal justice system to find alternatives to incarceration—and effective interventions across the entire system to get people the treatment they need.” But for the most part, the Administration’s approach looks like more of the same. It outlines no changes to the White House’s approach to marijuana, a blow to legalization advocates in the same week that Washington state became the second to legalize the sale of cannibis to adults for recreational purposes. Despite the [President’s belief](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa%5Ffact%5Fremnick) that pot is less harmful than alcohol, federal law still classifies it as a Schedule I drug on par with cocaine and ecstasy. Discrepancies between state and federal pot laws have [blocked legitimate weed-business owners from accessing banks](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2162916,00.html) and [left the threat of jail time looming](http://time.com/2972323/the-pot-paradox/?pcd=hp-magmod) over users, sellers and growers even in states where some form of the drug is now legal. The new strategy calls the increasing perception that cannabis is relatively harmless—fed not only by state legalization efforts, but also perhaps the President’s own remarks to that effect—a “serious challenge” to drug reform efforts. “The drug czar’s office is still tone deaf when it comes to marijuana policy,” said Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Why stay the course when the current policy has utterly failed to accomplish its goals?” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/"},"headline":"Obama's New Drug Policy Looks a Lot Like the Old One","datePublished":"2014-07-10T17:15:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:01:09.000Z","description":"A new emphasis on treatment and addiction, but no change on marijuana","url":"https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/","keywords":["White House","Health Care","Marijuana","Drug Policy","Drugs","Heroin"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640a0e1d63a0e5c7/69869b3f35ba6f4843c02f89/ap313948209170.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Altman","jobTitle":"Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/alex-altman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640a0e1d63a0e5c7/69869b3f35ba6f4843c02f89/ap313948209170.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Michael Botticelli","caption":"Michael Botticelli","creditText":"Erica Yoon—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/","name":"Obama's New Drug Policy Looks a Lot Like the Old One"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Alaska Next In Line To Make Pot Legal?","description":"With the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, advocates in Alaska say they already have enough signatures to get it on the ballot for August.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/R1uoe4HC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-01-09T18:21:55.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/R1uoe4HC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/","duration":"PT1M53S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/2973144/new-white-house-drug-policy-barack-obama/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```