Marijuana is 'not a factor' in the Trump administration's drug war, say DHS chief

DHS Secretary John Kelly on NBC
(Image credit: NBC/Screenshot)

Arresting marijuana users is not a priority of the Trump administration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Sunday while speaking with NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. "Marijuana is not a factor in the drug war," Kelly said. "It's three things: Methamphetamine, almost all produced in Mexico; heroin, virtually all produced in Mexico; and cocaine that comes up from further south."

"The solution is not arresting a lot of users," he continued. "The solution is a comprehensive drug-demand reduction program in the United States that involves every man and woman of goodwill. And then rehabilitation, and then law enforcement, and then getting at the poppy fields and the coca fields in the south."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.