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An increase in the demand for health services from marijuana is not a reason to push for keeping it illegal. Alcohol and tobacco actually kill you and kill you quicker, so make them illegal, if that’s your logic.

Who said it was? Certainly not I. Next time, read before you type.

But, on the subject of logic, the fault lies in yours, not in that of the putative strawman you're attacking. How? Simple: alcohol and tobacco have been in constant, steady use for a long time now, so their effects on the public health system have already been fully accounted for - that is, the marginal costs associated with alcohol and tobacco use are already fully taken into account, so they cannot increase the costs of that system. Since the point at issue was whether legalizing marijuana would add an additional burden to the public health care system, the toxicity and/or lethality of alcohol and tobacco are irrelevant since the public health care system can quite clearly bear the burden those substances place on that system.

Finally, the remarks I did make on this thread were addressed to the motivations of said Congress-vermin, not to the actual impact on the public health care system, nor the more general topic of whether or not marijuana or other mind-altering substances ought to be illegal.

But, since you made that an issue, I will simply say that I am in full accord with the view that it is not a proper subject for federal legislation and ought to be left to the individual states to deal with as each state thinks proper.

Then again, there are an awful lot of things that I do not believe are fit or proper subjects of federal legislation.