There are many things that provably have much higher risk of harm than cannabis but have no serious attempts underway to make them illegal. Unhealthy food. Motorcycles. All kinds of dangerous hobbies. And alcohol of course. The list is long.

I don’t think it has much to do with wanting to help or protect anyone, or else you would see more consistency in the things people want to make illegal. It’s more akin to religious people who think they know the “right” way to live and want to impose those values on everyone.

Many people just have an emotional dislike of cannabis for whatever reason—seeing its effect on others makes them uncomfortable, so they want to stop everyone from doing it. Soda and motorcycles don’t make them uncomfortable, so they don’t care about those.

How many societies would have made marijuana illegal had the US not done so first and then forced the rest of the world’s hand?

Not convinced. Look at Singapore. I doubt they would care what the US does. Anyway, after the US legalizes everything for “freedom”, I’m not sure that many countries will follow suit.

You're wrong about that. Every non-theocratic/ hyper-conservative country will legalize it sooner or later

Hmm, the non theocratic countries like China represent the majority and I’m not sure they will do that…

China may as well be considered hyper-conservative in drug policy.

I believe it’s left wing authoritarianism. The government said it was bad, so everyone back the party line.

Yes and they are very conservative in many social policies, including drugs (conservative = maintaining ("conserving") the status quo).

Sure if you define conservatives to mean authoritarian leftists who want to conserve their rules and laws, I agree:

Nice snarky bad-faith response. It's obviously not what I said. I hope you get better at dealing with people who threaten your sense of superiority.

I’m pretty sure alcohol, cars, and guns do more harm, but good luck making them illegal.