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Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. questions Michael Botticelli, deputy director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, as he testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Committee on Overnight and Government reform subcommittee hearing to examine the administration's marijuana policy.

(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

, D-Ore., took one of the White House's top drug policy advisors to task at a Congressional hearing earlier this week for failing to answer questions about how marijuana's health risks compare to meth and cocaine.

, deputy director of the Office of National Drug Policy, appeared Tuesday before the

. Blumenauer asked Botticelli a series of pointed questions beginning with the number of overdose deaths attributed to marijuana in the past five years.

(Botticelli's boss, Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Policy, is in Oregon today.

, Kerlikowske declined to comment on the exchange between Botticelli and Blumenauer.)

Blumenauer's questioning begins at the 30:55 minute mark.

Botticelli said he was "not sure" of the number of marijuana overdose deaths. Blumenauer, an outspoken advocate for marijuana policy reform at the federal level, said experts "whose judgment I respect" say they don't know of any.

Then he asked about how marijuana compares with other illicit drugs. Marijuana, along with heroin and LSD, is considered a

, which the government classifies as "dangerous," lacking medicinal value and prone to abuse.

Methamphetamine and cocaine are listed as Schedule II substances, also considered dangerous, but less prone to abuse than those in Schedule I.

“What is more dangerous and addictive: methamphetamine and cocaine or marijuana?” Blumenauer asked.

“I don’t think anyone would dispute the fact that there is relative toxicity related to those drugs,” Botticelli said.

Blumenauer pressed him, saying the question was a simple one. Botticelli said the comparison “minimizes the harm.”

“No,” said Blumenauer, “I am not trying to minimize the harm. … I want to know which is more dangerous and addictive.”

“Let me just say your equivocation right there, being unable to answer something clearly and definitively when there is unquestioned evidence to the contrary, is why young people don’t believe the propanganda, why they think it’s benign," Blumenauer said.

“If a professional like you cannot answer clearly that meth is more dangerous than marijuana, which every kid on the street knows, which every parent knows, if you can’t answer that, maybe that’s why we are failing to educate people about the dangers.

“I don’t want kids smoking mariuana, but if the deputy director of drug policy can’t answer that question, how do you expect high school kids to take you seriously?”

-- Noelle Crombie