I re-read your post after the edit (and then re-read your new post after ITS edit), it doesn't appear to address my post. Medical marajuana is a half-way measure designed to get through SOME sort of legislation. The 'war on drugs' is killing people, but religious groups and teetotalers are too short-sighted to see it.
If Prop 8 still gets passed in a state as liberal as California, how exactly do you expect to win people over with "There's no reason for it not to be illegal"?
You get MM passed, you help the suffering people, you let some people get high, and slowly the attitude of the nation changes. Slowly marijuana isn't the evil devil that's turning our kids to rock & roll. Slowly it's just another vice, not even an expensive one.
Slowly the religious nuts turn their attention elsewhere. And THEN we can get the "There's no reason for it not to be illegal" law passed. But you have to do these things in steps.
And the reason *this* step isn't bullshit is because it's helping out actual people.