If you live in one of the places where recreational marijuana use is legal — Colorado, Washington, D.C., Oregon, Alaska, and Washington state — and you enjoy smoking weed, you better smoke it while you got it. Come 2017, if Chris Christie is in the White House, he’s going to lay the smackdown on pot users.

Christie promised at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that if he is elected president in 2016, he’s going to “enforce the federal laws.” That means he would ensure that federal laws criminalizing marijuana use would be enforced. He went on to state that elected officials can’t unilaterally choose which statutes to enforce.

“That’s lawlessness,” Christie said. “If you want to change the marijuana laws, go ahead and change the national marijuana laws.” He is a staunch pot opponent, even when it is declared legal for medical use, as it is in New Jersey, the state he governs.

He also believes that marijuana "alters the brain and serves as a so-called gateway to the use of harder drugs," which may or may not be true, depending on whom you believe. And while smoking weed does alter the brain, it only impairs certain parts of the brain.

As much as Christie disagrees with recreational use of marijuana, it does seem odd that he still can’t see the benefits of marijuana in medical use. Twenty-three states currently allow medical marijuana — again, including Christie’s New Jersey — and there hasn’t been a single reported case of overdose from marijuana. There’s evidence that marijuana relieves chronic pain; reduces muscle spasticity from multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and paraplegia; reduces the frequency of epileptic seizures; and prevents migraines and asthma attacks. It also helps relieve nausea in cancer patients.

Though the change has been subtle, the American public is warming up to the idea of legal marijuana. Since 1969, according to a poll taken by the Pew Research Center, Americans have switched 41 percent in regard to whether or not they think marijuana should be legal. In a separate chart done by the same company, even the political parties have changed their stance, though Republicans are still far below Democrats and liberals.

Further research has shown that although people wouldn’t be opposed to a marijuana-selling business opening in their neighborhood, many would still be opposed to open use of marijuana in public.

Only time and votes will tell if Chris Christie gets his wish of ending the lawlessness that is marijuana.