At Issue with Marijuana and Tobacco

Compared to non-users, chronic marijuana users show (greater) gray matter density loss in the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain that is implicated in making decision. On the other hand, users show greater brain activity (i.e. more connections) in the forceps minor, which is the white matter that connects the frontal lobes, thus facilitating communication between these lobes.

Researchers speculate that the greater activity in the forceps minor may serve to compensate for density loss in the orbitofrontal cortex.  In the short term, such compensation probably works in favor of creative types, whose work depends on greater receptivity to their surroundings.  As with any psychoactive substance, however, long term use can undermine any benefits that users see:

So, as with any psychoactive substance, users need to exercise caution, and professionals and authorities find the need to warn the public accordingly:

Many TV and radio commercials on prescription medications prompt us to consult with our physicians and duly warn us of side effects (sometimes via that annoyingly sped-up voiceover).  I imagine that if marijuana does get legalized, it will join the arsenal of pharmaceutical companies and be fashioned in commercials touting faux romanticized benefits.  I imagine such companies have already deployed their multi-billionaire eyes and ears on the legislative process. 

But another issue is more troubling to me: In the midst of legislative squabble, scientific uncertainty and corporate salivation, and also in the face of sociocultural wavering and moral-ethical scorn on the very notion of marijuana, smoking cigarettes is as legal as can be.  There is no great squabble or significant uncertainty around tobacco, and money makers have long ago been put in their place.  For example, it is well known that tobacco alters brain structure and causes health devastation (rf. Smoking harms your brain as well as your body: It leads to sharp decline in mental ability, warns study and DrugFacts: Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products).

  
Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Bellini focused on sugar vs marijuana in the above video, that is, the extent to which Americans rated their relative harmfulness.  But by far Americans saw tobacco was the most harmful among these substances.

So even as advocates work at legalizing marijuana, shouldn't they, or another set of advocates, work at outlawing tobacco?  Or should we simply halt all squabbling, and legalize marijuana, and situate it in the pantheon of substances that, oddly perhaps, speak to our freedom to choose?  After all, we Americans ought to have the final say, maybe the only say, in what we do with our bodies and what we put into it, right?  Or should we simply ban anything and everything that smacks of deleterious effects, including sugar? 

If I were Albert Camus, I'd find something patently absurd and amusing about how we, in various sectors of society, navigate marijuana and tobacco.