Santorum tells N.H. he would ignore the Constitutional powers of the States to enforce his moral views

On Thurs., Jan. 5, 2012, I was in New Hampshire and heard Rick Santorum, candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, at a town hall event.* The last questioner, obviously believing the Santorum was a conservative, prefaced her question by noting that it is a core conservative principle that state and local governments have the power to govern themselves without federal interference, and asked, "if you were president would you protect gay marriage and medical marijuana laws and allow them to operate without federal interference?"

After the long digressions he is famous for, and being prodded by the audience for an answer at 3:21 in that video, Santorum said,

"states under the Constitution probably have the right to do medical marijuana laws but -- legally, but I don't think they morally have the right to do things that are harmful to the people in their community and therefore I think the federal government should step in."

Whoa Nellie! Notwithstanding his understanding that the Constitution legally permits states to "do medical marijuana laws," if he were President, he would direct the federal government to step in to stop them.

I have to wonder how many of the conservatives who voted for Santorum, or are planning to vote for him because of his religious and social views, are comfortable with such an expansive and cavalier view of the President's power to disregard the Constitution based on his "moral" judgement. For a candidate who cites wide ranges of sources in his speeches, he cited no authority other than his own ability to discern harms to people and to make a "moral" decision.

Would any strict constructionist or partisan of the "original intent" school of constitutional interpretation find Santorum's analysis a tolerable conception of the President's power?

*The town hall meeting was at the Grappone Conference Center in Concord, NH at the College Convention 2012 organized by New England College and sponsored by Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the AARP.