Should marijuana be legal?

A quick look on medical aspects

There are reasons for cannabis to be illegal, but there also are reasons
for it to not be so. Now I will try to find out whether it should or shouldn't
be allowed.
The following analysis of the effects of marijuana usage was made accor
ding to book Psychiatria kliniczna (ISBN 978-83-7609-114-3).
The use of cannabis may cause a wide variety of mental effects. The more
positive possible effects are euphoria, increased self-esteem, heightened sensiti
vity to colors and sound, impression of deeper understanding of life, world and
everything, and in some cases, sleepiness. These usually are short lasting; usua
lly a few hours, but sometimes, in cases of greater intoxication may persist up
to two days. But there are negative effects as well, including disturbance of ti
me and space perception, cognitive functions disturbance, psycho-motor coordinat
ion disturbance, reduced criticism, anxiety, or racing thoughts. Possible long t
erm effects include amotivational syndrome and triggering or causing psychosis a
nd cognitive functions disorder. Cannabis may be introductory drug one may start
using hard drugs after marijuana. Addiction consists mostly of psychological depe
ndence. Its withdrawal syndrome appears usually only after long heavy usage, and
consists of psychical hunger, sleeping disturbance, anxiety and irritability. M
ostly persists no longer than a few days, although some effects may last up to a
few months.
Now, what does the whole text above mean for a cannabis user? Most possi
bly you would feel good after smoking weed (although there is a non-negligible r
isk of a bad trip) - light-hearted, and, generally, relaxed. The negative effects
most probably will not be consciously perceived what means you may try to, for e
xample, drive, what could be dangerous because of your reduced criticism and coo
rdination difficulties. You could lose control over your train of thoughts, what
could be unpleasant, as then you are unable to focus on anything until the effe
ct wears off. Next day probably all the effects would be over, although, if you
have tendency towards psychosis, it might be enough to trigger it. Assuming that
you do not have this tendency, you probably would be all right. However, if you
persist in using cannabis, you can get:
a) psychically addicted it means that you will seek the possibility of cannabis
application; world will seem bland without it, you will feel hunger for it
b) amotivational syndrome it means that you will not want to do anything, you m
ight drop out of school/job, your future might stop meaning anything for you
c) cognitive functions disturbance it means you will not be able to easily learn
new things and recall old, you will be unable to concentrate on things you do,
you might start thinking magically.
Now the comparison to two most popular psychoactive substances; alcohol
and tobacco.
Comparing to alcohol; cannabis has weaker withdrawal syndrome, it does n
ot cause withdrawal delirium, dementia, amnestic syndrome, mood and sleep distur
bances all of this alcohol can cause.
Comparing to tobacco; marijuana has stronger effects of acute poisoning,
but weaker withdrawal syndrome. Tobacco cannot cause poisoning with delirium, p
sychotic disorders and anxiety disorders.
Therefore, in my opinion cannabis does not have many strong reasons to b
e illegal, and even may be less dangerous than some of currently legal psychoact
ive substances. Of course, marijuana legalization might have unpredictable econo
mic impact for example, it would be difficult to tax something that everyone can
grow in their backyard. But still, I think there are not many reasons to keep i
t illegal.