I don't think it would be used as widely as tobacco...I think the fact that weed makes you high if you smoke/ingest it is a turn-off for many people. Tobacco can give people a "buzz", but it isn't the same as the distortion you get with pot: you still function normally. JMO, but I think the fact that weed changes one's perception/behavior/etc. will prevent it from being used as much as tobacco products currently are. Also, the fact that it is less addictive....
Also, I wouldn't argue that weed is "completely harmless" to anyone. Even if the legal age for smoking it was 21+, I know there are still going to be negative effects.....
Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was claiming it was totally harmless 
Oh, okay, I get'cha.
Haha. No, I didn't think you thought I thought you thought weed was totally harmless. I kinda gathered your view from your earlier posts.
*Re-reads.*
Wow... That was the most redundant sentence ever.
Anyway, as for the whole: "It dramatically effects behaviour, so it won't be used often" thing.
Do you think that the vast majority of people who abuse alcohol in a social scene want to function after their eighth beer? There are legions of people who still do this, and sometimes on a nightly basis. They don't want to function afterward (in fact, the aim is
not to function
). But they still do it, for whatever reason.
Do you think that if weed became more accepted, and the legal system supported its use, some people would come to abuse weed as much as they would alcohol?
I can see how making it accepted would definitely cause a lot of people to justify its use and abuse if it; and when adolescants begin to use it, there may be negative effects on their brain development.
As far as the influence on kids goes...I don't know. It's kind of hard for me to say. I've know a lot of kids who have parents that smoke/drink, and because of that, the kids do it less: either as a result of bad experiences, or simply because it doesn't have that "forbidden" allure to it.
On the other hand, I'm sure there are many kids out there who use drugs because they grew up in a household where drug use was acceptable or encouraged.
Although I would think that in cases where it was encouraged, drugs would be done anyways...whether it was illegal or not. Also, in those kinds of situations, the kids aren't really educated on it.... Whereas perhaps in a household where the parents would smoke a J on special occasions (if it was made legal), then I would expect the kid to be much more knowledgeable about the drug and the effects it has...
Make any sense?
There are a lot of people who do not smoke weed, and their only justification for not doing so is because it is "illegal". So while the "forbidden" allure might coax the more rebellious of younger people into using it, there might be others who will be tempted by the "legal" allure.
Some people could think: "Oh, well, the government says it's safe enough to be legal, so it can't be that bad."
And if mre adults coined this mentality, then the domino effect could be that their children gain the same mentality, and they come to use (or abuse) weed... and perhaps at ever-decreasing ages as time goes on.
But adolescants aside, there are a lot of adults who are negatively influenced by THC after having an "abnormal" reaction to it. There have been some people who have talked about it on this thread, and marijuana can't have gained such a bad reputation
worldwide just because of some racial bias in the US more than seventy years ago.
Before it is legallised, we need to be able to prove that it is an entirely safe drug to be used recreationally by a significant number of people. More needs to be known about it.
