DENVER – Should marijuana be treated like alcohol? Or should it remain in the same legal category as heroin and the most dangerous drugs? Votes this week by Colorado and Washington to allow adult marijuana possession have prompted what could be a turning point in the nation’s conflicted and confusing war on drugs.

Colorado’s governor and attorney general spoke Friday with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, with no signal whether the U.S. Justice Department would sue to block the marijuana measures. The states are holding off on plans to regulate and tax the drug while waiting to see whether the Justice Department will assert federal authority.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in Washington’s largest counties dropped all pending misdemeanor cases of marijuana possession Friday in response to the state’s vote to legalize the drug.