Well said, Steve. It's frustrating to see society so slow to learn from the mistakes of history, but turning around large groups of people is like turning around a large ship.
Love the historical footage ... the anti pot and booze ads ... Lucille and Ricardo advertising Phillip Morris lol
There's no doubt it's medicinal, although like all medicines there is an optimal dosage. Abuse of pot won't have the dramatic effects of many other things but it's still not good - overdone it messes with your head, especially for schizophrenics, and it reduces motivation ... if you feel wonderful while just sitting on your butt then you're less likely to get off it and do something.
I think that's the main reason why the powers that be dislike pot, given that they basically see us as productive units. Too much pot and you're like an unoiled cog in the machine. Transcendent experience is only allowed if gained through the prescribed channels of alcohol, mating and breeding, the highs of work success, organised religion, sport and popular (ie. money spinning) arts.
Tribal societies often used entheogens (Wiki: "a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context"). These experiences can be inspiring and lead to insights that can be applied in daily life. In progressing society from the tribal ways we threw some babies out with the bathwater. In some ways modern society is more barbaric than traditional ones.
An anecdote about productive use of smoko. A few years ago I had a major and high profile (within the organisation) reporting project and I was overwhelmed by it. Spent days ineffectually trying to make sense of it and was getting nowhere. Then one morning, on a whim, I had a cone before work. Floated into the office, sat at my desk, opened the file and revisited the errors I had to clean up - several thousand of them.
I was baked and relaxed so I just picked one error and did an analysis on it. Cool, just three and a half thousand to go! So I fixed another, which turned out to be identical in principle to hundreds of other errors. Three thousand to go. By lunchtime I'd broken the back of the project and was back to schedule - the smoke had eased off my anxiety and allowed me to focus with some clarity.
It's reefer madness I tell you! We are dangerous people!