January 19 - Obama: Pot is not more dangerous than alcohol

President Barack Obama said he doesn’t think marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol, ‘‘in terms of its impact on the individual consumer.’’

‘‘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 he 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,’’ the president said an interview with ‘‘The New Yorker’’ magazine.

Obama’s administration has given states permission to experiment with marijuana regulation, and laws recently passed in Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana recently went into effect. The president said it was important for the legalization of marijuana to go forward in those states to avoid a situation in which only a few are punished while a large portion of people have broken the law at one time or another.

The president said he is troubled at the disproportionate number of arrests and imprisonments of minorities for marijuana use. ‘‘Middle-class kids don’t get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do,’’ he said. ‘‘And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties.’’