Image credit: Phil Mccarten/AP Photo

White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske visited the Betty Ford Center in California, promoting the administration's attitudinal changes toward drug abuse.

Kerlikowske is the first director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to speak at the facility in Rancho Mirage, according to a Betty Ford Center spokesman.

Kerlikowske, who formerly served as Seattle's police chief, said his first project in the Obama administration was to institute a "paradigm shift" on substance abuse, bending Washington's policy focus away from punishment and toward prevention, treatment and recovery.

"Drug addiction is not a moral failing on the part of the individual, but a chronic disease of the brain that can be treated," Kerlikowske said Wednesday, telling the audience that one of his first actions was to create a branch solely dedicated to recovery. "This is not my opinion or a political statement open to debate. It is a clear and unequivocal fact borne out by decades of study and research, and it is a fact that neither government nor the public can ignore."

He assumed office in May 2009.

The federal government now spends more money on prevention, treatment and recovery than it does on law enforcement and incarceration, according to Kerlikowske, not counting interdiction or international programs.

Here's how Kerlikowske pitched the agency policies geared toward supporting addiction recovery, expanding access to treatment, examining state and local laws and bolstering community-based programs: