Different drugs have different effects, and we dop use them for the effects as well as for the taste. Plenty of time I've had a cup of coffee to wake me up. Having a cup of tea to steady yourself in a crisis is a pretty general practice in England. People have chocolate to cheer yourself up, and that's not just the sugar.

The point is, caffeine (in tea and coffee) and theobromine (in choicolate) are drugs, as are nicotine and alcohol. They just happen (in our society at this time) to be legal.

When I have an alcoholic drink, it's not to get drunk, it's because I enjoy the taste, and I find it gives a mild degree of euphoria and exhileration. That's how many people use cannabis. Obviously in both cases some people do use it to get totally smashed or stoned. Silly, and potentially dangerious, much more so in the case of alcohol.

Obviously there are drugs with much more dramatic and dangerous effects. But when people go on about "drugs" as if they were all the same, it's nonsense. Horses and dromedaries have a lot in common, they just aren't quite the same. But just because someone didn't like horses they wouldn't be entitled to declare all mammals are the spawn of the devil.

The bottom line for me is this: the harmful effects of trying to enforce laws against cannabis are much greater than the harmful effects of relaxing these. And that is not exactly an extreme position. In fact it seems to be the general view of governments and law enforcement agencies across Europe.