By Jorge Calvillo (staff@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Jan 22, 2014 11:53 AM EST

As the debate on marijuana legalization continues to rise as a prominent topic in public forums, President of the United States, Barack Obama, recently took a bold position in the argument, saying in a recent interview that consuming cannabis is no more dangerous than drinking alcohol.

"As it has been documented, I smoked when I was young, and I see it as a bad habit and a vice, not much different from the tobacco cigarettes I smoked when I was young and for a great part of my adult life," the President told David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker.

President Obama also said that the sanctions on the use of the drug fall disproportionately on minorities and that the states that legalize cannabis must move forward with their action plans, referring to Colorado and Washington, which both recently legalized recreational marijuana use.

"Middle class kids are not going to jail for smoking marijuana, but poor kids are. African-American and Latino kids have bigger chances of being poor and less likely to have the resources and support to prevent excessive punishment," the President told Remnick.

"We mustn't lock up the kids or individuals that use it when some of the people that wrote those laws have probably done the same thing," Obama said.

While great strides have been made regarding legalization and/or decriminalization of marijuana in recent months, the substance is still illegal under federal law in most of the United States. However, 21 states currently allow, or are close to allowing, use of cannabis, according to Reuters.

In the states that have implemented measures in favor of legalization, the Department of Justice will not interfere with measures to regulate and tax marijuana, so long as a series of requisites are met, which include restricting sale to children and flow towards other states.

While President Obama made a surprising political stand equating marijuana use with alcohol consumption, he said he was skeptical that marijuana legalization would solve "all social problems."

The complete interview will be available in the next issue of the The New Yorker on Jan. 27.

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