DEA To End Medical Marijuana Raids

"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."

The national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Bill Piper, a marijuana advocacy group said Holder's statement was "encouraging."

"I think it definitely signals that Obama is moving in a new direction, that it means what he said on the campaign trail that marijuana should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue," he said.

Piper said Obama has also indicated he will drop the federal government's long-standing opposition to health officials' needle-exchange programs for drug users.

While on the campaign trail, Obama recalled that his mother had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. Obama told an reporter last 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."

Advocacy groups were angered after the DEA raided a marijuana dispensary in South Lake Tahoe two days after Obama's inauguration, as well as four other dispensaries in Los Angeles on Feb. 2. White House spokesman Nick Schapiro responded to advocacy groups' protests by noting that Obama had not yet appointed his drug policy team.

"The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws" and expects his appointees to follow that policy, Schapiro said.

The Bush administration had blocked a University of Massachusetts researcher's attempt to grow marijuana for studies of its medical properties. Piper, of the Drug Policy Alliance, said he hopes Obama will reverse that position.

"If you removed the obstacles to research," he said, "in 10 to 15 years, marijuana will be available in pharmacies."