The sanction for alcohol use has lasted for millennia. It has become part of our rituals at meals, celebrations, and religious services. That is a large part of why Prohibition failed.
Marijuana, in contrast, has always been counter-cultural in the West. Every toke symbolizes a thumb in the eye of Western values. So it follows that in order to maintain our culture, we need to criminalize this drug.
The prohibition against marijuana is one brick in the foundation of our society.
You know, marijuana has only been illegal for 72 years. This isn’t a brick in the foundation of anything. Marijuana's prohibition was born out of absurd racist demagoguery, and the counter-culture that subsequently emerged was a symptom of prohibition, not a justification for it.
Ironically, Garbar is trying to fan the flames of what she sees as a massive culture war over marijuana, yet as the comments indicate, she can't even get her own conservative readership to buy into it.