Well yes, soft drugs and alcohol are very similar. Only that most goverments judge faster that soft drugs have a quicker and worsened effect on people. Especially when those people are behind wheels.
And yes, hard drugs is definitely something else, in comparison.
I should check the exact law about soft drugs in my country......
....ah, here it is:
The use of cannabisproducts such as hasj and marihuana are no longer punishable in Belgium. Therefore the old druglaw from 1921 became adapted. But the political parties had different conclusions, so there came a compromis:
In the new law there is the differentiation of soft- and harddrugs. Users of harddrugs could still get persucated jurydicly, users of softdrugs not anymore. On the other hand there's also the differantiation between problematic and non-problematic use. What the exact difference is, remains unclear. It's also uncertain how much gram someone may have in posession. It's like, would 10 or 20 gram still be normal for personal use, or would you be speaking of trading then? Because the trade of softdrugs remains forbidden.
So you may use cannabis, but only if there's no social disbehaviour cause by the using. But because of this lack of precise rules, then everything becomes a question of interpretation for the police and the judges. There are only a couple of politics which are saying that driving under influence of drugs is forbidden. And if someone's addicted, he should be in rehabilitation.
Also, it's supported that the prosecuted users of harddrugs to keep them out of prison; they should also be sent to helpcenters.
This new druglaw is a total disaster, just because it's all about interpretation, and things that you "should" do. The rules don't have anything to say about how the druguser is actually getting his softdrugs. If trade is still illegal, then you couldn't buy it anywhere legally, in theory. So anyone that wants to smoke a joint, he should plant it's own "Belgian Weed". Or he could make a trip towards a Dutch coffeeshop. But the tourists in the Dutch coffeeshops have to smoke anything they buy there, they have to smoke it there. The import remains illegal.
....so the law has improved some. But at some points it's about speculation.
(when i translated this to english... i don't know if everything's right, but i did my best

)