We talked about business and from when you do it because it gives you a living and where you don't need it.

If the production and trade of cannabis were legal, like commercial pharmaceuticals or mind-altering products (like alcohol), it would probably create the kind of market we know. (Would it then be less cool to smoke or trade it, when the secret and danger is missing?)

Mankind decides on the basis of existing laws and their penalties, less on whether they are actually or supposedly dangerous products. What one gets high on is therefore more likely to be a trend and an arm of the law.

... Though, if something becomes a strong habit and enough people ignore the law and accept the consequences, there is always the possibility that the previous muckraking becomes a decent one. With cannabis, it seems, it's going in that direction, you just don't know exactly how long it will take. So everyone spending time in prison or arguing against penalties, has given his bit of sacrifice to alter the course of perception.

From my point of view, drug laws are reality-distorting for the reason that they make one drug perceived as diabolical and the other as heavenly. Whereas between both basically this distinction is not to be made, because effects are experienced individually and not collectively.
It is said that the legal pill market promotes massive addictions.

I would answer: "To each beast its own little feast".

There is no real difference between the two, only in social recognition or ostracism.
Politicians use it for themselves when they are certain about from where the wind blows, as we know :)