This is the Cater Daily Podcast for Monday, February 20th, 2017. I'm Caleb Brown. How will the

war on drugs change under a President Trump?

Barack Obama did remarkably little to de-escalate the drug war but Donald Trump and particularly

Attorney General Jeff Sessions may step it up.

Sean Dunigan is a former Intelligence Research Specialist at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

We spoke about the Obama record on the drug war last month.

Years ago when I was a reporter, I was pretty well acquainted with the head DEA guy in Louisville, Kentucky.

And in some of my interviews with him, I asked him about what sort of his priorities were and

what he wanted his office to focus on.

And when we got to talking about cannabis, he basically dismissed it as a priority at all.

And I was taken aback a little bit,

but I guess I understand more now

that you have limited resources, you want to prioritize those resources.

Where do you think marijuana ranks in DEA's list of priorities generally?

Well, as a practical matter, it is a lower priority

than, say, heroin or cocaine.

I think there's a tacit acknowledgement

among almost all people in DEA, you know that using marijuana does not pose

the same public health risk or risk to the user that using heroin does.

And so, you know, there is an acknowledgement, I think,

that it is a lower priority.

However, when given the opportunity,

...