Unfortunately, those waters were muddied in the first place by people who had a vested interest in banning cannabis in the first place. The blanket ban resulted in the concomitant banning of hemp - to the massive profit of owners of forested tracts, and the consequent destruction of said forests for paper making. The eco-friendly hemp was thus sidelined, except for a brief respite during WW2, when farmers were urged to plant acres of it towards the war effort (see Hemp for Victory). The worst slippery slope that I can see in any relation to cannabis, albeit as a very minimal fraction of the numerous causes, is the acceleration in global warming. Meanwhile, the drug that has been defined as the most addictive, namely nicotine, is freely available to all people over the age of 18. As I mentioned in a previous post, the primary gateway drug is to be found in your parents' drinks cabinet, but it could also be hiding in their cigarette packets.