'They' tried, to be sure! Remember when the 'Just say no' campaign ( there was a sterling failure in the anals of the alleged War on Drugs. The addicts were yucking up a storm, to be sure. ) resulted pretty much in CHILDREN coming home from school with thier heads so screwed up they were turning thier parents in to law enforcement? Not for the real problems- the heavy narcotic DEALING, but for smoking pot! 'They' adjusted public opinion, or tried to, beginning in the schools- with the idea of getting the lovely little minds young, demonizing pot so we have a whole generation who views it as evil, and second only to what, murder and mayhem in the list of things-not-to-do. Yes, it's illegal, but this form of torquing children's heads I found excreable. It worked, too, for 20 minutes. Can anyone imagine the harm it did at the time to the families involved? I can't imagine!
I haven't smoked, really since moving to England years ago. In those days you lost your Visa pretty dam quickly if found fooling around with any of that stuff so just did not. Oh, here and there but meanwhile my system must have changed because it's effects as I got older were ridiculous- there's just a heavy, heavy stupor I find incredibly unpleasant. Post-trauma, also, I do not tolerate anything which causes a disconnect at all well, either so it doesn't work well for me as it does for some. The point being, stripped of it's sociological ( and you can't say that without inserting political ) implications ) pot is not a big deal- 'gateway' or not. The whole 'gateway' thing tends to be because it's been driven underground, anyway, and associations come into play. Legalized this would be diminished hugely.
Redtail, since you haven't smoked, well, it's just that if one DID have some anxiety about it's legality before having a few tokes you just kinda don't later, that's all. It tends to be helpful that way. :)