President Barack Obama said no when asked by an online audience whether he would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in order to boost the U.S. economy, the New York Times reported March 27.

Obama’s recent online town hall meeting included a mix of questions from a live audience and the most popular questions among 100,000 submitted via the White House website. The question that received the most of 3.6 million votes cast was on marijuana legalization.

“I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” Obama joked in response to the marijuana question, then added: “The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow the economy.”

Later, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that legalization advocates had apparently organized an effort to generate votes in favor of the question.