Totally agreed, but dosage is just one dimension of marijuana that is generally misunderstood. The other 2 dimensions are consumption form and cannabis strain - combining these 3 dimensions results in very different mental states. However, the laymen looks at marijuana effects and thinks "high", "stoned", or some other mental state that is equivalent to their college experiences or perhaps a drug addict.

Consuming marijuana through ingestion vs inhalation results in a completely different mental experience as a function of how these consumption methods throttle dosage over time. Ingestion will spread a dosage over 4-6 hours, whereas inhalation will expose your mind to this same dosage in in .5-1.5 hours. Also, inhalation has a THC absorption threshold that is much lower than ingestion.

And, of course, cannabis strains themselves each offer completely different experiences. Small doses of sativa strains vs large doses of indica strains produce a light, highly energetic feeling vs a stoned feeling, respectively. http://www.leafly.com/explore#

Combing these 3 dimensions, dosage, consumption type and strain produces a broad range of mental states that can be anywhere from empowering, to euphoric, to self-destructive. Like anything else in life, the key is to be disciplined and adjust these 3 dimensions for your personal goals (of course, being disciplined about adjusting dosage to 0 as a bias).

But consider work, play and deliberate practice (http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the...). Marijuana affects the hippocampus, and our ability to form memories while under the influence of the drug - this can be a positive in some contexts and a negative in others. For instance, when doing repetitive work, low doses of ingested sativa can actually enhance productivity of results for mundane work - no learning is necessary, just execution. For play, low doses of inhaled sativa or indica can inspire creativity for hours - leveraging the cognitive cycles previously reserved to querying and storing memories for your mind to test new hypotheses about incoming information. For deliberate practice language learning is key, so most contexts of deliberate practice would likely be harmed by introducing marijuana. Of course, some individuals may benefit from low doses that offset the mundane repetition for a net benefit.

Anyhow, I don't claim to be an expert in these matters, but simply to point out that judging Marijuana users as simply people that like to "get high" is utterly and completely ignorant of the reality. It is a judgement, a prejudice and a symptom of pervasive mis-education in our culture.

Of course, these are "opinions that [I] would be reluctant to express in front of a group of peers" (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) - present company apparently excluded. Rationally, it makes sense to me that drugs exist that allow me to exercise discipline and tweak my mental state for the task at hand - from caffeine, to ritalin, to THC - and everything in between. However, due to the legal status of marijuana, and people's own experiences with using the drug to get stoned, avoiding judgement and prejudice in todays world (even amongst the highly educated and successful) is a taboo. I look forward to the day when I can have open, educated conversations about the effects, benefits and harms of marijuana. I also look forward to the day when I can have educated conversations about marijuana with intelligent people and not be judged as someone who simply "likes to get high".