Obama Might Allow People To Smoke Marijuana In States Where It’s Now Legal
Good news from the current “former marijuana smoker” in the White House: Barack Obama has finally (and vaguely) said that his administration will not make it a “priority” to prosecute people who legally use marijuana in the western states of Colorado and Washington. Voters there approved recreational weed in the November election, and since then the U.S. Justice Department has continued its weird, threatening rumblings. (States with legal medicinal pot have seen increased prosecution of legal growers and dispensaries during Obama’s first term.)
“It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that’s legal,” he told ABC News in part of an interview released on Friday.
“At this point (in) Washington and Colorado, you’ve seen the voters speak on this issue. And, as it is, the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions,” Obama said.
Obama is the third consecutive president to be a known recreational user of marijuana. But so far, only coastal-elite Republican-lite leaders like Michael Bloomberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger have had the personal dignity to admit they enjoyed the use of the commonplace plant.
