KCI The Anti_Meth Site

Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing?

Cabird	Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? I was wondering if parents here who smoke weed do so with the knowledge of their children? The reason I'm asking is because 2 relatives of mine smoke weed and their children know it. The children claim that it isn't a drug and to them it is just a normal thing for their parents to do. Two of the children are grown now and they both smoke it. One of them does other drugs he refers to as designer drugs. He claims he would never do meth or heroin. He thinks those people are the addicts but marijuana smokers can't get addicted and it is a natural plant and that makes it okay. He was shocked when he applied for a job that does drug testing and he was told that marijuana is a drug. He didn't get the job or maybe he decided he didn't want it. I'm wondering if parents are or should be providing their children with factual information about marijuana, even if they smoke it themselves.
Replies...
Sfj	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Conversations and discussions on this subject are rather common on this forum. There are a number of opposed opinions just like on many topics. Here's mine: I don't smoke pot for two reasons. In this order. 1. I'm in a program that advocates abstaining. 2. I don't have the desire right now. But I have no problem with people who smoke pot in a manner that does not cause problems. They may be rare, but they do exist. For example, if a guy wanted to take a couple tokes off a doobie before going to bed on Saturday night, I see no problem. And yes, such people exist. When it becomes an everyday, all day situation, then I think it's too much. I live in San Francisco and we have numerous "Cannabis Clubs" that are regulated by the City Govt. The State, the medical community and the citizens of our town. The "clients" are required to get "medical marijuana" papers from a physician, a fairly, simple, and easy task. www.dph.sf.ca.us/services/mcidinfo.htm I have no problems with that. And again, people who smoke a couple tokes are not causing anyone else any problems. Marijuana is not addictive, it may be habit forming, but so is gambling, overeating and many other activities. Cigarette smoking is much more deadly than marijuana smoking. 435,000 to zero. www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm Alcohol is legal, and the biggest killer next to tobacco. Bigger questions come into play when we ask questions about what is legal, ethical and moral. Making something legal doesn't make it right any more than making something illegal makes it wrong. Tough choices have to be made by tough people.
Loraura	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Do I think their parents are doing them any favors? Nope. Sure, they can portray the thought that smoking pot has no consequences. As you've shown, one child has already met reality with the job drug testing. Many people teach, or demonstrate, to their children habits or actions that will later become harmful to their children's success.
Cabird	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Loraura, I actually agree with you on this. I don't have an issue if someone wants to smoke pot. I do think it would be best to smoke it away from children or at the least to provide the children with facts on any health effects from the drug. The same with regular cigarettes.
katelin24	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? *Quote:* Smoking weed and children I've seen people smoke weed but in all my years, I've NEVER seen anyone smoke children. Can't be too good though.
vicky	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? I have said before, I think one of the greatest failures of the DARE program, is that it does not go deeper into the differences between drugs. I think that being honest with your children about those differences will lend you credibility, whereas, if they have only the fact that "all drugs are bad, okay?" to lead them, the first time they do try something, (usually pot) and find it relatively harmless, they're going to assume others are also, and that they were duped. I smoke pot. I do it discreetly, and not often, for medical reasons (neuropathy). I have two children, and I had my own talk with each of them in the 5th grade, which is when DARE is introduced here. At the time, I didn't know I had MS, only knew that certain days I felt really bad, and a little bit of pot helped. I did not portray it as harmless, but explained that like many legal drugs it has uses and to go beyond those uses would cause trouble. They are 16 and 20 now. Neither one smokes pot, and yes I know this because my daughter is an athlete at school, and has to test, and my son has random tests at work. It is never a favor to your children to say that any substance (even as SFJ said, fast food) has no consequences, but neither is using fear tactics to bend them to our will. Most of the parents we see here, with addicted children, did not teach their children this behavior. So I am not really seeing how one can be blamed for the other. I am not saying your actions make no impact on how your children turn out, of course they do, but I think that in these matters, risk-taking behaviors, most of us equate ourselves with our peers, instead. Just for the sake of conversation, I totally quit smoking pot a little over a month ago to look for a job. Immediately I went into a full-blown episode of my MS, and it is not only the most long lasting I have had, but this time I am experiencing symptoms that I never had before. My doctor said my only real alternative is a legal prescription for something far more costly, inebriating, and habit-forming. Thanks, but I'll just muddle through.
Sfj	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? To vickydammit, I think that your approach is among the best I've ever seen. I realize the "bumper sticker" crowd really embraces the notion of "A drug is a Drug Is a DRUG." But I think that concept is nonsense and has caused a great deal more harm than telling people the truth would have. Different drugs do different things at different levels of harm. Why is that idea so difficult to embrace? www.dpft.org/texasevents.html
Kell happy	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Marijuana is not the same drug it was in the 60s and 70s. Maybe back then the argument about it being a "natural drug" would fly. However, since then it has been manipulated by people to make stronger and different strains. It is about 300% more potent, or something like that. People have cultivated it to be stronger, and more profitable in lesser quantities. Good old American capitalism! That being said, I believe everyone surely has their choice. You can smoke all the marijuana you want. I don't really think it should be illegal even. In fact, I think if I had to choose, I'd make pot legal and booze illegal. My own personal experience was that I smoked marijuana for a little over 5 years after quitting meth. Eventually, the fact that I'm a drug addict led me into a lesser degree of misery, similar, but not as dramatic, to what I experienced with meth. I agree with Sfj about degree of harm. But I also believe that I'm an addict, and to me - well, eventually I can become the same sad, lying, depressed, low-functioning, messed up person with weed. I surely didn't degrade myself, or act AS badly, or hit as LOW of a bottom as my meth bottom. But I sure DID hit one. It was the bottom that sent me to rehab. It was a bottom where I was still lying and taking my family's money. Now, that's me. I believe in the medical goodness of marijuana. I believe in some people ability to use things in moderation. I'm not one of them, because I'm a drug addict. I'm not only addicted to meth. I'm addicted to Tylenol PM if you give them to me. I'm a DRUG addict. I respect the fact that people besides me can use stuff I can't. It's even OK with me. But I can't. I am pretty much always filtering all the information I can get in order to have conversations with my kid about drugs someday. He's one right now. My husband and I really want to be able to honest talks with him. We are working on what we'll have to say to him, what to say when, etc. OK, I'm officially jumping down off of my damn soapbox now...
vicky	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Kell sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Being honest with my kids has really paid off, in terms of mutual respect. I bet it does for you too. SFJ, thanks for that link! I have just recently started to look for organizations, and have found a lot, but that one is by far the most comprehensive. Katelin i just caught that! LMAO, nut! I bet my kids would just taste rotten.
mary mary1	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? *Quote:* I've NEVER seen anyone smoke children Katelin. That's what you do when those kids do something really, really bad - you smoke 'em across the butt!!!
Cabird	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Okay, you guys. I worded the subject pretty stupid. I have a grandson who smokes a lot of pot. His mother smoked it and I am concerned about his lungs. I think weed controls him. His mother has taught him that it is not really a drug. He thinks he can smoke all he wants and it won't hurt him. He buys the good stuff and most of the money he earns goes for his weed. His motivation has gone way down too. I think kids should be educated on it. I don't mean the scare tactic type of education. They need to know the facts. I think this kid is addicted to it. No one can convince him that it could be harmful to his health even though he has developed a chronic cough.
chris gonz	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? I smoked pot the whole time I was raising my older kids. I never hid it, I told them it was a drug, but that I wasn't going to hide it or go into rooms with airspray to smoke. My son, now 21, smoked pot for a while, wanted to get involved with something that required he be clean and he quit. My daughter, now 25, smoked pot once and didn't like it. So she doesn't smoke at all. I quit smoking pot for like 10 years, and started again like 3 years ago. I have a prescription for it, a certificate, and 2 lawyers pre-paid in the event I go to jail on pot charges. I never take it out of my home. I'm very open about it and my youngest, 13, knows it's here, I stay in my room with it now, and we talk about how addicting pot is too. She understands I'm too sick to leave the house and often don't eat or puke immediately afterwards. umm.. my kids don't smoke pot, my son tried shrooms once. they've never been in any kind of real trouble, so... I'm honest about stuff and open to any and all questions from my kids. My 13 year old tells me when people talk to her about 'getting mom's weed', she knows it's here for medicinal and she even offers to cook after I've smoked. She's cool with it and knows it is a drug and yes, it's addictive... like how some who just blaze all day and not get anything done. But, that's me and the way I've raised my kids.
vicky	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? *Quote:* I think weed controls him. *Quote:* He thinks he can smoke all he wants and it won't hurt him. He buys the good stuff and most of the money he earns goes for his weed. His motivation has gone way down too *Quote:* No one can convince him that it could be harmful to his health even though he has developed a chronic cough. Yes Cabird, you're right, its a problem. None of those things is even remotely reasonable on his part. When someone treats it like an escape, just like anything else, it causes one to miss out on real life. *Quote:* His mother has taught him that it is not really a drug. I have talked to lots of people who think this. When I ask them why they usually talk about studies that show that rats under test conditions in a lab won't self administer pot like they will other drugs in the same schedule, like meth, cocaine, opium, and heroin. That doesn't make it not a drug though, of course it is. It only shows something called dependence liability, which is the drug's potential for addiction. Your grandson's mother is doing him as much a disservice as those who teach their kids that a drug is a drug, or that legal necessarily means right. Pot is a drug, as evidenced by my experiences with MS, and Chris' story above. Chris, I won't say that my kids haven't had a few negative experiences because of my stance. Its a very small town, and I am discreet, but not dishonest. When my son was a senior in high school, they searched his car six times in one semester, without his permission while he was attending classes. They always said the dog hit on it (yes, a drug dog making regular sweeps in a high school parking lot with a graduating class of 23 in Podunk, TX, but they never found anything and they did damage the car locks. Every time it happened, I was consumed with guilt, and he would always say, "I'd be much more bothered by having a mother who couldn't function, or one who didn't have the courage of her convictions." And I bet your daughter feels the same way.
coffee diva	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? I grew up with a dad that smoked pot. He was open and honest about it. He was a well respected member of the community, sat on the Economic Development Council. Always had a job. In fact, I had a fantastic childhood. When I was a teenager, he told me if I ever wanted to try it, to ask him. He said the same thing about getting drunk. I had a pact with him that if I was ever too drunk to drive I would call him. It was never an issue in high school. I was always the DD. I tried pot for the first time when I was 20, tried acid that same year. And have smoked it quite a few times since then. I have smoked with my dad. Mostly I have smoked after surgery. But it's really not my thing. I have maybe smoked it twice in the last 3 years. For me, it just makes me want to take a nap in the refrigerator!!! For my hubby, something totally different. All day, every day to 'get off meth'. He couldn't function without it, ran to it at the slightest stressor and spent $$ we didn't have on it. See, for him...problem. I think it should be legal. I'd much rather be around a bunch of stoned people than a bunch of drunk people! Further, all world leaders should be required to take a big bong hit before launching any offensive. Let's bring back the peace pipe!
chris gonz	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? Oh yea Vicki, My son would tell me how his friends smoked pot too, on the sneak and how they'd lie about where their money went and how some of the parents smoked too, only in secret, but the kids knew and would sneak their stuff and steal the pipes and stuff.... My son never stole from me and he never lied to me about it. Once he asked me if he could have one of my pipes and I gave it to him, he lost it at a friend's house and they 86ed him out of their home, cause my son claimed it was his when his friend was getting in trouble for it.. and these were by the parents who their son stole weed from... hypocrites.. my daughter doesn't like the woozy feeling, my son swore he had an epiphany so whatever, they both graduated, worked since they were 16, attend college/studies. they're good kids, I'm really proud of them as adults. LOL Trisha, re: bong hits my son said the same thing about politics... he said it should be required by law.. and that all people who had anger issues for years and years should try it too.
vicky	Re: Smoking weed, marijuana or pot and children not knowing? *Quote:* For me, it just makes me want to take a nap in the refrigerator!!! What a wonderful idea, I don't know why I didn't think of it before!