After The New York Times editorial board came out in support of the U.S. legalizing marijuana, the paper's editorial page editor told ABC News' Jonathan Karl this morning on "This Week" that he has smoked pot.

"I've never asked the people that work for me whether they smoke pot, and I'm not going to ask. I have smoked pot in my life. I went to college in Colorado in the 1970's, you figure it out," Andrew Rosenthal told Karl Sunday on "This Week."

The Times editorial board published its endorsement of the legalization of marijuana nationwide Saturday under the headline "Repeal Prohibition, Again," writing that the "federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana."

"We reached that conclusion after a great deal of discussion among the members of The Times's Editorial Board, inspired by a rapidly growing movement among the states to reform marijuana laws," the editorial stated.

This morning, Rosenthal said there's been a clear shift in American public sentiment toward marijuana usage and legalization.

"The country has been moving in this direction. Public opinion is clearly there. We've been watching the states experiment in more and more states now… And they're doing it in defiance of the federal ban," he said.

Karl asked Rosenthal if the Times' position might send a signal that there's nothing wrong with smoking marijuana.

"We thought about that and we discussed it and we think that there should be a 21 year age limit on it, although that will be permeable," Rosenthal said. "We're not urging people to smoke pot anymore than we are for them to drink alcohol or to smoke cigarettes. It's just that making it illegal was creating a social cost for the country that was absolutely unacceptable."

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