PP I suspect smokers are hoping our new 'liberal' government will lighten the legislation. Don't forget the tax has been hugely increased on cigarettes to try and stop people smoking. Same as on alcohol and this ties in with the conversations about minimum pricing on alcohol. Not sure how I feel about that one. Good to take measures to reduce drinking but why should rich people be the only ones who can drink?
Redpoppy from your description of cannabis users I suspect you're giving them as much more credit as some on the thread are taking. I've known an awful lot of regular pot smokers and not one has ever claimed or related anything like you describe. Almost without exception they smoke as a way of socialising and it has a deadening effect. I've certain heard of heroin and hallucinogenic drugs in general as promoting creativity but not pot. A good number of these people were musically talented and the effect was that they did nothing and eventually bands split up. Of those bands I've noticed that the musicians who didn't do any illegal drugs were the ones who went on to have careers in music. I'm not generalising, just speaking as I find.
Many musicians got decidedly better and more creative after taking drugs in the 60s. In fact drugs in the 60s can be held responsible for whole types of innovation in music. To deny this I think is naive. I'm not saying it gave them talent but it did give them OOMPH and helped their creativity reach new heights. Some music (anything psychedlic including psy trance, acid rock) by it's very name is saying it is inspired by drugs. I don't know if we would have had people experimenting with sounds the way they did or with vocals without those influences. I don't think cubism would have become a movement without some drug influence. Because when Picasso made some of those paintings they were directly about the influence of opium on his vision/imagination.
As for people smoking to get stoned, I'm sure they exist but cannabis DOES make you hear more intrinsically, see more questioningly, feel all your senses, (smell, touch and sadly especially taste! haha!) MORE. It's a very sensory drug. And I don't know if you're just meeting the wrong people but I've only ever met two people who do not smoke in this way and both times I felt the people were smoking out of either habit or for no reason. They weren't really experiencing the drug. Drugs for centuries have been used in a spiritual light in tribes. As I said, many people do drugs for "getting wasted" but even in the modern day you have conscientious rastafari who respect cannabis and use it as part of their religion. Part of their religious practice is to smoke pot and talk about important social issues. (I knoe there are probably rastafari who don't respect the drug and misuse it too.)
As for social lubrication, pot won't make you more likely to dance or let go of your inhibitions because it loosens you up but over time it may if taken by the right mind help you question why you have certain inhibitions etc. I realise it has different effects but if as many people were smoking pot on a weekend as drinking alcohol (say as they do in the cafe in Holland) then stones people would NOT be littering the pavements on the floor looking for a fight. Therefore to say drugs can have unpredictable effects is fine but to deny they mostly have similar effects is denying a reality.
On a related note Rastafari find it offensive to call it weed and since i heard that I try never to do so as it adds to the brainwashing, it is a herb and should be treated as such.
Also, if the pot smokers you know experience a deadening effect they're smoking really BAAAAAAD pot. Tell them to grow it naturally or find a different supplier!
Good pot has the perfect balance of THC and cannibinoids (however that's spelled!) so won't make people paranoid or make them fall asleep. And almost any drug on earth is made more dangerous or antisocial because people taking them tend to mix with alcohol. Again that's part of the education and brainwashing. People will KNOW not to mix their drugs as it can cause a dangerous mix but people forget that alcohol is a drug too and so every weekend when MASSES upon MASSES of "yoof" hit the clubs to get high on MDMA there's always that percentage of them that you have to walk around near the loos because they're vomiting their guts out usually on the floor
because they thought having alcohol with it would be fine.
Also, requiem for a dream?!?! Are you fricking kidding me?
Its the most anti drug thing out there and it's not about drugs its about addiction (to drugs) in my opinion. I'm sorry but me and your authority on drugs DH (who I imagine is lovely!
) will have to fiercely disagree.
Many pieces or art are MADE to help non drug takers see the sights of wonder drug takers have seen. MANY pieces of music are MADE to mimic the effects drugs can have on sound. I doubt he could deny that? Cubism people! Cubism!
I would class the creative drugs as the mind expanding ones: pot, LSD, mushrooms, opium. I'm not saying these are good or bad but saying the effects would be mind expanding as opposed to:
Mood enhancing drugs: MDMA, cocaine, heroine, crack, alcohol.
The mood enhancers make you happy or energetic or confident or feel safe etc.
The mind expanders do what is says on the tin.
All have their risks.
thats fact. people cant choose to 'believe' something is not a drug. they are by definition, substances that affect the functioning of the mind and body, hence are drugs.
to makes that clear yet again) should be avoided, and so do the government and health professionals. 
If only there was also a ban on huddling around the entrance to EVERY public building smoking too! If the government won't go as far as to make smoking illegal, people should at least be confined to their own homes to do it whilst (hopefully) not sharing the horrible smell and after effects with everyone else!
