Brainfreeze, I appreciate your input. I also understand your concern that by legalising marijuana, everyone's going to turn into a stoned pothead.
But we must be very careful about making assertions with no logical or evidence-based backing.
1)
Cigarettes cause serious brain damage. Nicotine, by all measures, is a stimulant drug (same as caffeine, btw). I suggest your aversion to pot is more culturally imposed than rooted in any intrinsic 'badness' of it. 200-300 years ago, most people saw coffee as an "evil drug" to be severely banned. Look where we are today.
2) Yes, we have punishments for drink driving. However, we do not punish people for having a drink or two at a party. Needless to say, Jesus drank wine at a wedding. We don't punish people for getting drunk and falling asleep in their own homes. And we don't punish people for carrying bottles of alcohol around.
There are degrees of differentiation. Why then should we punish people who smoke pot recreationally, are found to have pot on them, or if they choose, smoke pot to the detriment of their health but in all other respects do not affect others?
3) The issue of money. It seems to be 'immoral' to adduce financial factors as reasons for legalising pot. The truth is,
NOT considering the financial and social impact of over-policing marijuana use is the real immoral act (or rather, immoral omission).
Resources spent on incarcerating users and sellers, and policing and prosecuting a relatively harmless activity (ie. recreational pot use or mere possession) means resources NOT spent on things that are of greater benefit to society.
Much like alcohol, people are going to use pot one way or the other. Resources funnelling into organised crime as a result of pot being illegal causes far greater damage to society (eg. criminals with more money to fund the arms and human trades) than the relatively minor (or negligible) damage caused to society through legal pot use.
I'm not saying marijuana has ZERO negative effects, health or otherwise. However, sometimes the medicine (oppressive bans on pot) we apply to cure the ill (pot use) is so disproportionate that the medicine itself becomes the greater negative effect.