Yes, many of us have also taken a college statistical course and understand correlation != causation. Yes, pop-sci articles will more heavily infer there is a causation, and this is bad for public trust in science. Also, dismissing all correlation studies is bad for public trust in science. There's several very good reasons why we do correlation studies, and they actual return interesting data.

I'd like to point out that blood alcohol levels are not 1 to 1 connected to level of impairment, but still serve as a useful indicator for ability to drive. Those with high tolerances behave differently than those with lower tolerances. The current Cannabis test is far from perfect, but seems to be the best proxy we have available for empirical evidence of level of impairment.