This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, May 9th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Obama Justice Department still hasn't said exactly how they'll handle the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and

Washington. Democratic Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee believes a

Cannabis Commission could help lay the groundwork for ending the federal role in

regulating marijuana.

We spoke yesterday.

Since the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington,

what has been the federal response?

I know you've been in communication with the Justice Department about it,

but what has been their response?

It's been rather limited.

I did question the president at the Democratic retreat in January about the issue in general.

And he did say that they were, he was aware of the voters' responses and that they would not he didn't foresee

them making possession of marijuana a area they would emphasize but he said

they had to follow what laws we made and that we left

it at that.

I didn't follow up with another question and I think that he made that fairly clear that he wants to take a different approach on drugs and more as a health situation than a criminal situation.

But the Justice Department hasn't said what they're going to do specifically with Colorado or Washington.

Now, George Bush, when he was running for President in 2000, also said that he wanted to take drugs and treat it more as a public health issue rather than a criminal

issue and we saw what occurred there and President Obama has been a drug

warrior. Well we have seen unfortunate results. In 1972 there was a Schaefer

...