A Washington, D.C.-based marijuana legalization advocacy group on Wednesday announced that it has hired as a senior adviser, former U.S. senator from New York Alfonse D'Amato, a Republican once known for his conservative “law and order” views.

The Marijuana Policy Project, which seeks to end the marijuana prohibition, announced the launch of a New York affiliate of its organization as an effort to make changes to the state's fledging medical marijuana program.

“I was very, very skeptical that this was just gonna be another way for people to get high,” D'Amato, who was an outspoken U.S. senator from 1981 to 1999, said in an interview with the New York Law Journal Wednesday afternoon. “Turns out that's not the case.”