Cannabis and Child Care: Why Discretion Is Key

I’ve spoken lately about when/how I believe to talk to children about cannabis use. I have received a few comments that state I should just be open and tell them everything so as not to propagate poor information to another generation. However, laws are hyper-sensitive when it comes to children. My advice: discretion until they are 18.

A recent story out of Kansas illustrates perfectly why I feel this way. An 11 year old boy who’s mother is a medical cannabis user took issue with some of the “factual” nonsense his school was saying about cannabis and spoke out in its defense, claiming that his mother used it. His intentions were pure and innocent, but the authorities immediately began to investigate the mother and removed her son from her care. What is happening to this mother is just plain wrong, she suffers from Crohn’s disease and uses cannabis to treat her condition. Any law that rips a child from a loving mother who is not causing any harm is a law that needs to be revoked.

This speaks to the point of why discretion is paramount. No matter your intentions, you simply cannot control how outside entities will view your actions. While my heart breaks for this mother, it was, I believe, a less than sapient choice to keep her cannabis so exposed and to share that with her son so thoroughly. This happened in Wichita, Kansas, a decidedly anti-cannabis state. Whether it’s right or wrong on your moral spectrum, or how much the laws/opinions of the land might be swaying in our favor, cannabis is not (yet) federally legal and we still need to be cautious in these waters.

In Wichita, you can freely spit on the ground; in Singapore, you can get publicly caned for the same transgression. It’s asinine, but until it’s no longer an enforceable law, I won’t be spitting on the ground in Singapore.

I truly hope this mother gets her son back, she seems like a loving parent and I have no doubt her son is best served by being returned to her. The lunacy of this brings some more attention to the issue of cannabis legalization as a whole. However, I believe parenting should be a higher priority than activism. Openly storing and using cannabis in Kansas put her child at risk, not because the cannabis itself is dangerous, but because it took him from her care.

I would love to stand here with my pro-cannabis flags and glitter and speak out against the unfairness of losing custody over something like weed (it is remarkably unfair, by the way), but that does little more than preach to a choir. I don’t agree with Kansas’ cannabis laws, but they are what they are. Wishing a bear wasn’t chasing you doesn’t make the bear less real.

I have kids and I smoke a lot of weed. Those two worlds remain separate until they are out of high school, and I live in Washington. It is not even worth the whisper of a risk to gamble the well being of my children.

The sad part is, that kid seemingly has a more complete understanding of cannabis than his teachers. But let’s be clear, he’s not being taken from his mother because he spoke out in defense of marijuana. He’s been taken from her because, in Kansas, cannabis is an illicit drug and she had a ton of it in her home, in plain sight. In this case, this mother is the victim of an outdated and dangerous drug policy. The law is a broken and poorly tuned instrument, but its music is still what we all must dance to.