Dutch legalisation may not have improved Amsterdam's sleazy image, but neither has it caused lawlessness. But it does not necessarily follow that this should precipitate a change of policy. Medicine has always used, in controlled circumstances, drugs to which the public has no, or supervised, access. And many illegal drugs have no beneficial effects and often cause addiction. Whether medical use of cannabis is eventually approved or not has no bearing on the wider debate.
All drugs have psychotic properties which demand their careful regulation.
An early indication of Bill Clinton's highly developed political sense came when he distinguished smoking marijuana from inhaling. By doing so, he recognised the important psychotic properties of any drug - which distinguishes marijuana from tobacco. No politician wants to be seen in the eyes of his electors as a slave to any addictive or intoxicating substance which might affect his own judgment. There is a great danger that the existence of such a body would be used to condone wider drug use. This would be supremely unhelpful to those fighting the crime associated with drug abuse.