(CNSNews.com) – Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and former Seattle Police Chief, would not say how the spotty security along the southwest border affects his office’s effort to control the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

In his position, according to the White House Drug Policy’s Web site, Kerlikowske “coordinates all aspects of Federal drug control programs and implementation of the President's National Drug Control Strategy.”

After an event at the National Press Club on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Kerlikowske, “According to Border Patrol, only 873 [miles] of the 2,000-mile-long southwest border is under effective control. Does that affect your mission to control drugs?”

“Actually, I’m all here about prescription drugs today, thanks,” Kerlikowske said after participating in a panel discussion on the national prescription drug epidemic. He made no further comment on the border-drug issue.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), of the 1,107 border miles that are now under “effective control,” 69 miles are on the U.S.-Canada border, 165 miles are in the coastal sectors covered by the Border Patrol, and 873 are on the U.S.-Mexico (southwest) border.

National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske.

The Justice Department’s National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010 says, “Nineteen percent of youth aged 12 to 17 report past year illicit drug use.” The assessment also says that Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are the primary supplier of those illegal drugs.

“Law enforcement reporting and case initiation data show that Mexican DTOs control most of the wholesale cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine distribution in the United States, as well as much of the marijuana distribution,” said the assessment.

In his first interview after being confirmed as the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, back in May 2009, Kerlikowske said he wanted to end the idea that the United States is engaged in a war on drugs.

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."