Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says he doesn't yet know if he supports legalizing marijuana for recreational use -- but he could be convinced.
"I'm not there yet. I could be," Villaraigosa said during an extended interview on HuffPost Live Thursday. "We have to make sure that you have certain protections, obviously, like driving under the influence. But it's not before us, so I don't need to opine at this point.
Over 95 percent of the Border Patrol's anti-drug trafficking efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border involve marijuana, according to a report from the Center for International Policy released this week. Marijuana accounted for 46 percent of all illegal drug arrests in 2010, according to FBI statistics.
But despite U.S. authorities' preoccupation with controlling marijuana use, support for its legalization has grown in recent years. Medical marijuana laws have made the drug widely available in California, and the states of Washington and Colorado legalized recreational use of it on Nov. 6.
Watch Villaraigosa discuss his role in ending an $8 billion-dollar-per-day port strike, the fiscal cliff, California's Wal Mart strike and more in the video above.
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