it's true though, everything you can consume has an effect on you not unlike pharmaceuticals. we just classify them differently. and as a corollary, anyone that can make money off of that effect, will

This is obscurantism. If there’s no difference between marijuana and food, what’s with all the excitement and advocacy?

OP’s point seems to be pretty reasonable to me. If marijuana is outcompeting established anodynes it implies they are in the same category.