Obama unswayed by Sanjay Gupta's changed stance on weed

US President Barack Obama is not looking to change current federal laws on marijuana, apparently remaining unswayed by Indian-American medical journalist Dr Sanjay Gupta's U-turn on the drug, favouring its medical use.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said Obama "does not, at this point, advocate a change in the law" that places marijuana in the same class of drugs as heroin, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and which deems cannabis to have no medical use.
Responding to a question, yesterday, from CNN Chief White House Correspondent, Earnest described the Obama administration's position on marijuana as mainly focused on prosecuting drug traffickers rather than individual users.

"The administration's position on this has been clear and consistent for some time now," he said.
"While the prosecution of drug traffickers remains an important priority, the president and the administration believe that the targeting of individual marijuana users, especially those with serious illnesses and their caregivers, is not the best allocation of federal law enforcement resources," he said.
On Tuesday, Earnest had said he couldn't say whether or not Obama's personal views on medical marijuana had changed with neurosurgeon and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta's own shift on the issue.

Obama has already shown confidence in Gupta's medical expertise, offering him the post of surgeon general in 2009. However, Gupta had withdrawn his name so he could maintain his surgical career and continue spending time with his family, CNN reported.

Gupta, once a vocal critic of medical marijuana and sceptical of its benefits, posted an essay online, published August 9, titled "Why I changed my mind on weed."
In it, he described changing his own stance on medical marijuana after researching the topic for his CNN documentary "Weed".
Marijuana doesn't have a high potential for abuse and it has "very legitimate medical applications", he concluded in his article.
Obama last weighed in on the use of marijuana after two states - Washington and Colorado - legalised the recreational use of the drug.
"This is a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law," Obama told Barbara Walters of ABC News.

"I head up the executive branch; we're supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we're going to need to have is a conversation about, How do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offence and state laws that say that it's legal?" Obama said.