Biden: Pot policy holds

Vice President Biden said Thursday the Obama administration is not looking to legalize marijuana on the federal level.

In an interview with Time magazine, Biden said clamping down on people who smoke pot isn’t worthwhile, but the administration isn’t looking to legalize the drug, either. 

“I think the idea of focusing significant resources on interdicting or convicting people for smoking marijuana is a waste of our resources,” Biden told Time on Thursday. “That’s different than [legalization.] Our policy for our administration is still not legalization, and that is [and] continues to be our policy.”

{mosads}Biden’s comment on the issue comes just weeks after President Obama told the New Yorker magazine that marijuana isn’t any more dangerous than alcohol.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” Obama said.

The states of Colorado and Washington have legalized the use of marijuana recently; Obama said in the interview it’s “important for” those laws to go forward.

Time asked Biden to comment on Obama’s remarks. 

“Look, I support the president’s policy,” Biden said.

Time notes in 2010, Biden called marijuana a “gateway drug” in an interview with ABC News.