The U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder has indicated that states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana.

Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy.

During one campaign appearance, Obama had recalled that his mother had died of cancer. The President thus, felt that there was no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He told an interviewer in March that it was "entirely appropriate" for a state to legalize the medical use of marijuana "with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors."

But contrary to the poll promises the federal Drug Enforcement Agency raided a marijuana dispensary at South Lake Tahoe on Jan. 22, two days after Obama's inauguration, and four others in the Los Angeles area on Feb. 2. The White House spokesman Nick Schapiro responded to the protests by stating that Obama had not yet appointed his drug policy team.

"What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing here in law enforcement," he said. "What he said during the campaign is now American policy."