Those "cannabis activists" are most likely a (very vocal) minority... I don't know of anyone that _seriously_ hypes pot as a safe thing, and we have a lot of smokers here in Quebec (last official numbers were ~15% in 2015, pretty sure it's actually higher than that), so it's not hard to find one. There was probably "alcohol activists" back in prohibition, so I'd say this could also be a side-effect of its illegal status.

> There is a reason that under current law using/selling drugs is punished

There was also a law that prohibited alcohol for a time. I am also prohibited under Canadian law from pretending to practice witchcraft. Talking about differences, there is a big difference between legal and legitimate.