Bill Clinton says the federal government should shy away from legalization of marijuana for now — but that states should continue to experiment with their own "Rocky Mountain high."

The former president, in a taped interview in Denver with NBC’s David Gregory for “Meet the Press,” joked when asked about Colorado’s legalization law that he was being questioned about the topic of a “Rocky Mountain high.” But Clinton — who famously said more than 20 years ago that he tried pot but didn’t inhale — sounded a bit like a states-rights conservative when he said the issue of marijuana should largely be left to the locals.

“There’s a lot of evidence to argue for the medical marijuana. I think there are a lot of unresolved questions [about legalization], but I think we should leave it to the states,” Clinton said. “This is really a time when they should be laboratories of democracy. Because nobody really knows where this really is going.”

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The Obama administration has been hands-off with Colorado and Washington state’s marijuana legalization efforts. But Republicans in Congress last week tacked on a spending rider attacking the District of Columbia’s marijuana decriminalization effort, bringing the feds back into the debate over marijuana laws.

Local jurisdictions should largely be in charge of the enforcement of their drug laws, Clinton said, though he acknowledged there are questions about marijuana potency and quality control that need to be answered before Congress or the White House takes action.

“I like where it is now. If a state likes to try it, then they’ll be able to see what happens,” Clinton said.