To clarify, are you claiming that nicotine's psychoactive effects are minor or even positive?
Marijuana, on the other hand, slows your reaction time and hampers decision making, as well as (in a small percentage of people, but including me) triggers depression, paranoia, and psychosis. Although it is legal to have and to smoke where I live, you still can't do it while driving a car or in public spaces. Doesn't seem to stop people though :\
On the other hand. The impairment you are talking about has been shown to affect non regular users more.[0] and to be negligible to regular users.
I wouldn’t want to be driving on the road with someone after they smoked their very first cigarette. I remember what that was like the first time I inhaled. It’s all relative. Marijuana can be less psychoactive than nicotine depending on the person and their tolerances. Just anecdata but people also report some cultivars of marijuana calms nerves while improving focus.
[0] https://norml.org/news/2022/06/16/study-regular-cannabis-con...
I agree, in either tobacco or Marijuana, your not going to accidentally get high just existing in a smoking area. Marijuana however smells gross from a distance, I would be polite where you light up. Thats just common sense.
> I wouldn’t want to be driving on the road with someone after they smoked their very first cigarette. I remember...
As someone who had regularly done both, this is very wrong. First time smoking tobacco, yes I'd never want to drive in that state, but nicotine I would argue helps me pay attention, especially when driving for hours in a straight line. (Guess where I live) Marijuana however impaired me every time, and similar to alcohol I would never drive in that state.
I do think we can agree that the weed <-> tobacco comparison is not very useful, as weed is more closely comparable to alcohol.