There are different things to consider:
(1) Does marijuana have any acute detrimental effects?
I’m pretty sure even the biggest potheads will agree there are effects - you relax, your reaction time slows, brain activity drops - in short, you get stoned. Whether that effect is detrimental or not, I suppose, is up to the observer.
(2) Does marijuana have any long-term detrimental effects?
This is a subject of debate, and I will leave it up to people who are more informed to post.
(3) Is marijuana “safer” than X? (X = tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs, etc.)
Usually this question is phrased in a way to skew the answer towards whichever answer the questioner wants. If marijuana turns out to have acute, but not long-term effects, how “safe” is it relative to tobacco (which has fewer acute, but more long-term effects)?
And keep in mind that just because marijuana is “safer” than X doesn’t necessarily mean that marijuana should be legal. If both marijuana and X are unsafe, then both marijuana and X should be illegal.
(4) Does marijuana have any benefits?
This wasn’t posed by the OP, but it is a question that is directly relevant to the concept of medical marijuana, which I’m sure will work its way into this discussion.
As with any potential medicine (for example, a pharmaceutical that is up for FDA approval), the benefit of the drug (as measured by clinical trials by physicians, not home-remedies by biased pro-legalization fanatics) is weighed against its deleterious effects and also the other options for treatment. A remedy that has tremendous side effects and marginal benefit for a life-threatening disease may be approved if no other treatment exists, whereas the same side effects may not be tolerable for treatment of the flu.
I, if you hadn’t noticed, certainly have my personal biases, but in terms of making sure the right question gets answered, I’ll leave my opinion out of it.