Photo: Shutterstock. “Young man eating leaves of hemp. Shoot in the field of marijuana.”
“We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Obama told ABC News’ Barbara Walters, speaking about marijuana smokers in Colorado and Washington.
In those two states, recreational use is now legal, but the DEA still has a hard-on for weed prohibition, as demonstrated by the agency’s ongoing and aggressive dispensary raids in CA. According to the president, going after potsmokers in states where it’s legal is no longer a high (heh) priority.
“It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal,” he said.
“This is a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law,” Obama told Walters of the legalization in Colorado and Washington. “I head up the executive branch; we’re supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we’re going to need to have is a conversation about, how do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it’s legal?”