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The Controlled Substances Act requires that an analysis be performed before a substance can be scheduled as a controlled substance and placed in schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act The eight factors considered are...

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A number of them simply involve an adequate amount of research being done on the drug.  However, I found these quite interesting.

• Its actual or relative potential for abuse.

  To begin, the definition of "abuse": To use wrongly or improperly; misuse

  Let us discuss, first, that literally every substance on the planet can be "misused" and has the potential to be used to cause harm.  As a result, it's important to define "abuse" in this sense somewhat subjectively.  Since alcohol apparently does not have enough "potential for abuse" to be illegal, we can use that as a comparison here.  

  So let's examine the facts.
  1.  In order to fatally overdose on marijuana, one must take in the THC content of about 1/3 of their body weight of marijuana.  This has never been done.  In order to overdose on alchol, one's BAC can be as low as .25.  This happens daily.
  2. Marijuana is classified as "marginally physically addictive" to "not physically addictive."  Alcohol is considered a hard drug, and can lead to profound, long-term, severe addiction.

  Or we can compare it to another legal drug, nicotine.

  " Moderate smoking of marijuana appears to pose minimal danger to the lungs. Like tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke contains a number of irritants and carcinogens. But marijuana users typically smoke much less often than tobacco smokers, and over time, inhale much less smoke. As a result, the risk of serious lung damage should be lower in marijuana smokers. There have been no reports of lung cancer related solely to marijuana, and in a large study presented to the American Thoracic Society in 2006, even heavy users of smoked marijuana were found not to have any increased risk of lung cancer. Unlike heavy tobacco smokers, heavy marijuana smokers exhibit no obstruction of the lung's small airway. That indicates that people will not develop emphysema from smoking marijuana."

  Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. "Legalization: Panacea or Pandora's Box." New York. (1995): 36.
  Turner, Carlton E. The Marijuana Controversy. Rockville: American Council for Drug Education, 1981.
  Nahas, Gabriel G. and Nicholas

• Scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known.

  And additionally, "The dosage of any drug approved for use is intended to fall within a range in which the drug produces a therapeutic effect or desired outcome".

  "Marijuana has been shown to be effective in reducing the nausea induced by cancer chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in AIDS patients, and reducing intraocular pressure in people with glaucoma. There is also appreciable evidence that marijuana reduces muscle spasticity in patients with neurological disorders. A synthetic capsule is available by prescription, but it is not as effective as smoked marijuana for many patients"
  I fail to see how marijuana does not produce a desired effect.  Nor does it produce one that is difficult to control or predict.
  Additionally, it has been proven to be therapeutic in some situations.

• What, if any, risk there is to the public health.

  " Every serious scholar and government commission examining the relationship between marijuana use and crime has reached the same conclusion: marijuana does not cause crime. The vast majority of marijuana users do not commit crimes other than the crime of possessing marijuana. Among marijuana users who do commit crimes, marijuana plays no causal role. Almost all human and animal studies show that marijuana decreases rather than increases aggression."

  Fagan, J., et al. "Delinquency and Substance Use Among Inner-City Students." Journal of Drug Issues 20 (1990): 351-402.
  Johnson, L.D., et al. "Drugs and Delinquency: A Search for Causal Connections."  Ed. D.B. Kandel. Longitudinal Research on Drug Use: Empirical Findings and Methodological Issues. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978. 137-156.
  Goode, E. "Marijuana and Crime." Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, Appendix I. National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972. 447-453.

  "marijuana affects perception and psychomotor performances- changes which could impair driving ability. However, in driving studies, marijuana produces little or no car-handling impairment- consistently less than produced by low moderate doses of alcohol and many legal medications. In contrast to alcohol, which tends to increase risky driving practices, marijuana tends to make subjects more cautious. Surveys of fatally injured drivers show that when THC is detected in the blood, alcohol is almost always detected as well. For some individuals, marijuana may play a role in bad driving. The overall rate of highway accidents appears not to be significantly affected by marijuana's widespread use in society."

  Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. "Legalization: Panacea or Pandora's Box". New York. (1995):36.

  
  

• Its psychic or physiological dependence liability.

  "A small minority of Americans - less than 1 percent - smoke marijuana on a daily basis. An even smaller minority develop a dependence on marijuana. Some people who smoke marijuana heavily and frequently stop without difficulty. Others seek help from drug treatment professionals. Marijuana does not cause physical dependence. If people experience withdrawal symptoms at all, they are remarkably mild."

  United States. Dept. of Health and Human Services. DASIS Report Series, Differences in Marijuana Admissions Based on Source of Referral. 2002. June 24 2005.
  Johnson, L.D., et al. "National Survey Results on Drug Use from the Monitoring the Future Study, 1975-1994, Volume II: College Students and Young Adults." Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996.

  
  

• Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a controlled substance

  "Marijuana does not cause people to use hard drugs. What the gateway theory presents as a causal explanation is a statistic association between common and uncommon drugs, an association that changes over time as different drugs increase and decrease in prevalence. Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the United States today. Therefore, people who have used less popular drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD, are likely to have also used marijuana. Most marijuana users never use any other illegal drug. Indeed, for the large majority of people, marijuana is a terminus rather than a gateway drug."

  Morral, Andrew R.; McCaffrey, Daniel F. and Susan M. Paddock. "Reassessing the marijuana gateway effect." Addiction  97.12 (2002): 1493-504.

So my question is....how the hell did the government justify legalization?