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I know it's very popular and very simple to equate alcoholic beverage consumption and the use of marijuana, however, I don't see them as analagous at all. The ONLY reason anyone smokes/eats/whatever marijuana is for the mind-altering effect. This is not the case with alcoholic beverages, necessarily. Many people enjoy fine spirits, wine and beer for the taste, not to get stoned or high. So all of the inevitable comparisons between legal alcohol use and illegal marijuana use that don't allow for this very real fact are, inherently, flawed.
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That is slicing the bread very thin. Put aside the legalities and cultural acceptance for a second. Alcohol is a drug by nearly every accepted definition of what a drug is. If it did not have such a long history of use in our culture it would be a schedule one drug.
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Well, hang on a second. I enjoy a glass of scotch
If I have a steak dinner, I drink only scotch with my meal. Has nothing to do with the effects of alcohol making me drunk or giving me a buzz. Has everything to do with the fact that my palate is 'opened' by the scotch and the meat tastes better to me as a result. The point is valid, even if it's a small one. Meals are often times prepared with a wine, or even another spirit. Menus can be arranged around which spirit goes with what dish. Alcoholic beverages actually have slight- but measurably detected by studies- health benefits
By contrast, pot doesn't go with a meal, does it? I haven't heard of any gourmands starting the custom of cannabis braziers in private restaurants. Inhalation of a substance for an altered perception is a step removed- a baby step if you like but still a step- from the act of drinking a liquid, and the custom of drinking alcohol sprung up among other things because water was unsafe to drink. Nobody breathed pot because they couldn't breathe the air. Drinking alcohol and smoking dope are in two separate orbits, even if they can be argued to be similar ones.
The ATF should no more be permissive against 'legal' pot smokers than they should about a potential gun owner that has a doctor's note which says the person must regularly engage in some
other "medicine" which can lower the ability to reason well.