US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

Great news. A very sound move. Indeed, marijuana is much less dangerous of a drug yet considerably harmful in cases of chronic use in unreasonably high doses therefore should be controlled some way. What seems problematic nowadays is teenagers smoking too much. Also the idea of stoned people driving cars sounds scary. To me it seems it should be as available and legal as alcohol and cigarettes are, no less, no more.

What I'm curious about is how marijuana availability links to consumption of other drugs including hard drugs, alcohol, tobacco, tranquilizers and antidepressants. I hypothesize it may decrease these.

"Also the idea of stoned people driving cars sounds scary. "

Depends how stoned, but people routinely drive while using medication that affects them far more than being a bit stoned.

In response to uninformed sibling comments reflexively fearing cannabis use in drivers, see here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/

> Cannabis users perceive their driving under the influence as impaired and more cautious, and given a dose of 7 mg THC (about a third of a joint), drivers rated themselves as impaired even though their driving performance was not; in contrast, at a BAC 0.04% (slightly less than two “standard drinks” of a can of beer or small 5 oz. glass of wine; half the legal limit in most US states), driving performance was impaired even though drivers rated themselves as unimpaired.

> This awareness of impairment has behavioral consequences. Several reviews of driving and simulator studies have concluded that marijuana use by drivers is likely to result in decreased speed and fewer attempts to overtake, as well as increased “following distance”. The opposite is true of alcohol.

I'd be more weary of people under the influence of anger, benzos, or other psychiatric drugs.

In my experience, cannabis is a performance enhancer in these cases, increasing awareness rather than decreasing it. After all, it does improve ADHD symptoms.