Cannabis and Being a Parent: A Talk With My Son

The other week my son was telling me that when he walked home from high school, he passed a group of kids who were standing around smoking weed. He commented that the smell gave him a headache. I took the opportunity to ask him if he’d ever tried it.

I said, “No judgement, and you won’t be in trouble, but have you ever tried it?”

He immediately answered, “No, I’m not going to throw my life away on that crap.”

It was an interesting moment for me as I felt my zeal for cannabis momentarily at odds with my duty to parent my son.

Yes, I’m a cannabis enthusiast, but I’m a parent first and I truly do not want my sons to touch weed, alcohol, Sudafed or any other substance while they are growing and developing. I want them to develop healthy lifestyle habits and if, when they are adults, they choose to use cannabis, I’ll be thrilled to burn a bowl with them just like I’m looking forward to the first time I can take my son to the pub and buy him his first beer.

I do think that habits go a long way towards dictating success and I don’t want him to flounder or be distracted at a time when he is growing into the man he’ll become. Weed isn’t the problem, but allowing it to be the only thing you care about and fucking off on your responsibilities to get high is not ok in my book. I want him to learn how to be a successful person first. If he wants to try pot when he’s of age and has established goals and solid habits, more power to him.

I’m also not entirely sure that some teenage angst is not a good thing for growth. Smoking weed and feeling like all is groovy is a wonderful sensation, but it does little to show a growing young person how to take care of themselves and their responsibilities. And, at my son’s age, he’s going to learn a lot from his peers rather than his parents. So, I want to keep him on the straight and narrow as much as I can. Beyond that, I also don’t fully trust the authorities to paint an accurate picture of cannabis.

As I have said ad nauseam, the place cannabis holds on the federal drug schedule is more dangerous than cannabis itself. I would be very upset if my son tried cannabis (after being put through the modern day version of Reefer Madness) and realized it’s not nearly as scary or dangerous as he’s been told, then assumes that cocaine or heroin might also not be as bad as he was led to believe. That is the true “gateway” nature of cannabis.

I truly believe you can smoke weed everyday and be a great person at the same time. I don’t believe that smoking weed is a one-way ticket to a ruined life, but if my son feels that way about it and that mindset serves as a deterrent that keeps him away from drugs in general and away from people who are on a falling trajectory, I’m willing to swallow my tongue for now.

I also have to remind myself that when I was his age, I felt exactly the same way. I was staunchly anti-weed, a product of my own Reefer Madness inculcation. I didn’t really start to smoke weed heavily until I was 19 and in college and I think that’s a fine path for him as well, if he so chooses.

Maybe I’m wrong, but there is a time and place for the cannabis-truth speech, and, to me, it’s not while my boys are in high school.