Obama: Pot Users Shouldn’t Be Priority Targets in States Where Pot is Legal

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According to a part of an interview with President Obama released by the ABC News on Friday, in the wake of recreational marijuana being legalized in Washington and Colorado, the President has commented, “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.”

Obama also said in the interview, “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, who according to his 1995 memoir, “Dreams of My Father,” used to smoke pot regularly in high school, is more reasonable than many other previous Presidents, though not a few in the White House have admitted to smoking pot in their student lives. However, like others before him, Obama has expressed regret and he told ABC, “I want to discourage drug use.”

  

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Obama told ABC that the situation presented “a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law … what we’re going to need to have is a conversation about” ways to reconcile state laws and federal laws on marijuana.

Obama also made the priorities clear by telling ABC, “In a time of tight budget constraints, I want law enforcement to focus on violent crime … But now that we have a gap between federal and state laws on marijuana, we need more information and a wider discussion about where our priorities should be.”