Laws can easily exist with no good reason at all, Saul, but merely as a result of hysteria, ignorance, prejudice, and unfamiliarity of the "mainstream" with something. They can also exist as a result of cultural expectations which are totally arbitrary. Example: Our present culture figures that women's breasts should not be exposed...completely, that is...in public. It's a custom. Men's breasts are not remarked upon. That is arbitrary. There have been many cultures where women's breasts were exposed, and nobody thought anything of it.

Marijuana was considered unusual when the laws were passed. A culturally-based viewpoint. Had it already been considered "usual", as it was among most young people that I knew in the 70's, then no laws would ever have been passed against it. It's as simple as that.

Can you hurt yourself with it? Yes, but most people don't hurt themselves much with it. You can hurt yourself with any number of legal things which are taken for granted by this simple method...overdo them or handle them improperly. More people die of overeating than of smoking dope, but the law has not seen fit to make gluttony illegal, because gluttony fits within the culturally established framework of things the law takes for granted. Pot doesn't. It's arbitrary.

People confuse "good and evil" all the time with what is really just "familiar and unfamiliar" to them....like bare female breasts in public, for example. These things are not a question of good and evil, they are a question of habit and expectations formed by habit.

We all tend to feel uncomfortable in the presence of things which go contrary to our usual habits, and that's understandable, but we should not be so quick to say, "That's bad!" when it's just different from what we are accustomed to.

I made my own free decision not to smoke pot, after thoroughly investigating the matter, and I grant other people the right to make their own decision about it as well. Freedom of choice does not frighten me. People restricting other people's freedom of choice is what frightens me.