Identifying law and morality inevitably means defining morality as peaceful coexistence with authority, which is a deeply unamerican and deeply illiberal concept, even when the authority is democratic. Respect for the law helps maintain a functional democratic society, but it says nothing about the morality of acts that are allowed or prohibited by the law.

Besides, in practice, your idea of right and wrong does not match the law anyway. Romantic relationships, for instance, are largely unpoliced. if you think marijuana use is wrong, then smoking marijuana just takes its place alongside sleeping with your friend's girlfriend, pretending to be in love with a sensitive, conservative girl so you can fuck her, and lying to your girlfriend about seeing other women as something that is deeply wrong but best left legal. Not to mention all the behaviors that are self-destructive but legal: excessive alcohol consumption, drinking sugary beverages, watching infomercials, etc.

The mismatch between law and morality, and the enormous overlap between legal and self-destructive behaviors, can never be eliminated, nor even reduced much. It's obvious to every child by the time they're teenagers, if only because basic civic education teaches skepticism of the law. Of the three dramatic internal struggles than define American history, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement, almost every American sides in two out of three cases with people who refused to comply with unjust, oppressive laws. (It's irrelevant that which two is still sadly controversial.) We're also taught never to be afraid to be in the moral minority. Even when a matter is not weighty enough to justify rebellion, even if it is best for the sake of civil unity to appear to comply and to bow to the law when caught, it is always imperative to make our moral judgments independent of the law. We can be morally taught or advised by others, but we never put our moral judgment up for a vote. I'm sure you agree with this, and I'm sure you will or do teach your kids this if you have them. So what's the big deal about marijuana? It's just one of a thousand legal things you will have to teach your kids not to do. It's still legal to undermine a girl's self-esteem so she'll do things for you sexually that she really doesn't want to do. Hey, it's legal, it's popular, why not? (Well, you won't teach your kids explicitly not to do that, but it will follow from the basics.) Sometimes it's pragmatic to bring law and morality into line, and sometimes it's a huge distraction and waste of money to try.

If you're nevertheless determined to cultivate respect for the law as a moral institution, you should still be in favor of marijuana legalization. Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, and making alcohol illegal is not an option. Therefore, the illegal status of marijuana will always be a glaring advertisement for the arbitrariness of the law and will continue to turn almost every college kid -- even me, who was never much of a fan of marijuana -- into a willing drug criminal. Thanks to pot, I now feel pretty comfortable with the fact that some of my friends have dealers, and that if I want some kind of illegal drug, I'm just a phone call or two away from being introduced to a drug dealer and making a purchase. It doesn't seem weird to me, and it doesn't even seem very dangerous. Aside from speeding and failing to come to a complete stop before a right on red, smoking pot socially is the only way I'm comfortable breaking the law. Every time I'm offered pot at a party and say, "Sure, why not," I'm reminded that laws are often silly and arbitrary, and I become more comfortable being a criminal. Many Americans approve of that attitude, but it sounds like you do not, so why do you support a law that undermines respect for the law?