That article makes my point.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon convened a commission to study the effects of marijuana. The committee concluded that federal and state laws should be amended to end criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the drug. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter delivered a message to Congress in which he repeated the commission’s findings: ÒPenalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana for personal use.Ó Amen.
It starts off as a plea to allow the use of "medical marijuana" to end suffering, then wanders off into a sermon about decriminalizing it for recreational use. It even has an "Amen" thrown in for good measure. Most of the people pushing this issue aren't sick. They just want to be able to get high and put their fellow coworkers at risk of injury without being fired.
The compounds that help sick people have already been identified and put into medical form. Since you can't get high from them, they are of no use to the habitual dope heads.