If Clinton felt this way, I don't understand is why the Clinton Administration didn't change the emphasis from the War On Drugs (People) to a War on Violent Crime. They certainly had the power to allocate and reallocate federal funds. More people have been imprisoned for smoking pot during Clinton's administration than any other.
Of course, Clinton has always been hypocritical in this - "I never inhaled."
Here is the text of the interview that is applicable (for those who don't click on links):
<<President Clinton, who tried to avoid the stigma of smoking marijuana by saying he never "inhaled," tells Rolling Stone magazine that people should not be jailed for using or selling small amounts of the drug. In an interview with the rock magazine released on Wednesday, Clinton was asked if he thought that "people should go to jail for using or even selling small amounts of marijuana?" Clinton, who raised eyebrows in the 1992 presidential primary campaign when he admitted trying the drug but adding he didn"t inhale, told the magazine, "I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be." He added, "We really need a reexamination of our entire policy on imprisonment. Some people deliberately hurt other people and they ought to be in jail because they can"t be trusted to be on the streets. Some people do things that are so serious that that they have to be put in jail to discourage other people from doing similar things. "But a lot of people are in prison because they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too many of them are getting out -- particularly out of state systems -- without treatment, without education, without skills, without serious efforts at job placement." >>