AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I think legalization of mary-j is going to help move research along so we can understand the effects (and possible risks) better. It'd be better to have research first and then legalization, but with the stigma that it's under in many circles, at least this way some progress could be made. We could use individual states as guinea pigs of sorts to help inform federal decisions about it in the future.

Unfortunately, it's a bit reminiscent of how a bunch of commercial X-ray technology was developed for medical/public use before it was studied well and people died from the radiation because they didn't know the risks or how it should be properly used.

Even if marijuana is legalized I sincerely doubt it will be legal to smoke in public. Public intoxication is against the law in most places as far as I'm aware.

Public intoxication though, not public drinking. It's all about the amounts.

Public drinking is illegal in the US too.

You either have to be at a residence, restaurant, or a place with a liquor license (but not a place that SELLS alcohol, like Wal-mart or something), and you're not allowed to have open containers on your person, even if they're empty.

If you have a container that was previously drank from, it has to be sealed, usually from a professional place used to doing stuff like that (restaurants often do this with the rest of the bottle from a dinner).

If police catch you with an open bottle of wine, or an empty beer can, you can get in big trouble for public drinking, even if you weren't actually drinking it.

Public drinking is illegal here too, no open containers and all that. Effectively, police only controls for that in big cities and problem areas of course.

The ill effects of Cannabis are far less than that of alcohol. Anyone who says otherwise is talking nonsense.

That still doesn't mean that I trust a person to drive safely while under its effects.

The problem is that, from what I've seen on the Internet, nobody can decide exactly what the effects of cannabis are in the short term and long term, and the public needs more information than just googling "What does marijuana do to you" and getting mixed results. Get a University or some independent research group to do some proper research and submit an official report and then let people decide whether they want to use cannabis or not.

If it makes any difference to you most of the pot smokers I know don't own a car. And I live in like the pot capital of canada.

Yes, but if the federal government gives the okay for Colorado and Washington to allow adults to use cannabis, then there are going to be a good amount of people who own cars then have the choice to purchase and use it. I'm not saying that every single car-owning adult in those states is going to be smoking pot while driving or driving their car while high, but pot-related car accidents will happen at one time or another if the Fed gives the states the go-ahead on it.

It's probably going to be treated like alcohol is. If you're found to be driving wile under its influence/using it while driving in any way shape or form, you'll get a huge fine/jailtime.
Alcohol related car accidents happen all the time. I'm not saying that's good at all, but they happen. It's inevitable for as long as alcohol and cars exist simultaneously. Likewise with cannabis. They'll happen, but there's no way to stop them all forever untileither pot or cars exit the planet for good.

I understand that but I don't think it's as much as a worry as you do. And again, Alcohol has killed way more people than pot ever has or ever will. You don't toke up and go beat your wife.

Anyone who drives under influence is a fucking moron, and that will never be legal. It's not legal to drive under some medication either. Health effects of cannabis, while a point of conflicting studies (because of conflicting interests), are still estimated low enough that it's considered pretty much the safest form of medical pain treatment.

Not necessarily. The immediate effects, yes. However, a single joint contains five times more carcinogens than a cigarette. Long time smokers also tend to show a decrease in intelligence, brain cells, and sperm count.

Alcohol causes a lot of immediate effects, but they go away rather quickly in comparison. Marijuana causes a lot of long term effects, that manifest slowly.

The main reason for this is because people don't smoke a lot at once. People can go through several packs of cigarettes and bottles a day, but if you smoke like five joints in a 24 hour period you're already smoking two more than most people. If people smoked marijuana as much as they drank or smoked cigarettes, they'd be faced with a lot of problems very fast.

So in the short term, yes, alcohol is much worse. But marijuana is not even close to being less harmless. It's just taken far less.

Also debatable
Cannabis and tobacco smoke are not equally carcinogenic
Wikipedia on safety of medical cannabis
Wikipedia on criticism of medical cannabis
Check out wikipedia's sources for more in-depth information.

There are also a multitude of other ways to consume cannabis other than smoking that are generally healthier, although this of course doesn't eliminate all health risks.

My stance is still that, while it's not "the world's most dangerous thing" that a lot of pot smokers are saying other people say about it, it's also not "God's gift to humanity". You're still inhaling smoke, which is damaging to your lungs, and it's still impacting your ability to function in a normal manner (whether or not that impact is "less" or "more" than other stuff is irrelevant). People definitely shouldn't be allowed to smoke weed and drive simultaneously. People shouldn't even be allowed to be high and drive simultaneously. If anything, it's just to be safe, and has nothing to do with "the government being afraid of this harmless, magnificent, godsend thing!" We may not know everything about it, but the things we do know include that it impacts your mind, you need one or both hands to use it, and that it is still smoke getting into your lungs, where smoke shouldn't be getting. Those three things alone should be justification enough.