Letters to the Editor
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just switch drugs.
the mother just needs to switch to zoloft, luvox, prozac or effexor and then her kid will have no problem since she will then be drug free and legal. d.a.r.e. never met a happy pill they didn't approve of.
don't feel bad, nazis also had no idea they were dead wrong.
have you taken your legal doctor prescribed mind altering medication/recreational drug today?
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Parenting is a bitch
But that's why I don't do it. OTOH, I love being an "unofficial" auntie (just like the LW) and boy, can I not wait until the little terrors (3 & 5) are teenagers.
In the meantime, I loooove to get high and play in the woods, blow bubbles, make (really bad) balloon animals, and take the older ones to movies that would not hold an iota of interest for me otherwise. I am an absolute expert at finding shapes in the clouds and I can read Seuss books over and over. This is fun for all of us (especially Mom and Dad who have those pesky job things and aren't as available to play as much as the kids need) and it will give me a chance to talk openly about pot AND addiction with them as they get older.
I know that bringing up a child is more than that, but the fun stuff is all I signed on for with this particular crew. If I had to do it all day/every day, I would throw myself under a bus. As it is, I get to be part of their lives and keep my own adult life (job, bills, marriage) intact.
Maybe the letter writer could focus on ways to bring the family together?
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RealName
Actually, if you look at the letter, she's got the marijuana for medicinal purposes now. Therefore, depending on the state she's in, it's actually probably not an illegality.
I teach, and I have students with ADHD who smoke in the dorm LEGALLY. They can't get arrested. They can't get fined. They can't get kicked out of school.
So, legality is not the issue.
I know that our country has decided that nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol are a-okay. Marijuana, at least for medical use (as a start) ought to be legal in all states, too. Any substance, including chocolate, can be abused. And, if the choice really is between pain killers and marijuana, surely the pot is the more benign substance of the two.
Although the LW obviously doesn't approve, it's pretty clear that the mother doesn't sit around all day in her underwear, staring at the walls, listening to trance music. I think, too, in this particular letter, since we're not seeing the whole picture, but only a very limited one. There simply isn't enough proof that the mother is some sort of addict. There is an interesting knee jerk reaction in these letters, and in Cary's response, to the idea of smoking marijuana, however, that is sort of fascinating. An addiction is automatically assumed.
If the issue were indeed cigarettes, and the boy found a pack in his mother's purse and threatened to leave home because of it, would the reaction here be so strong? Personally, I think cigarettes cause more death and family separations through death than many other drugs, certainly marijuana. But, I'm guessing most people would agree that, while it would be nice for the mother to quit, the kid is probably pulling that time-honored teenage tradition of being a pain in the butt. Since the mother isn't doing anything illegal anymore, as she has the medical certificate, the real issue here doesn't honestly sound like a problem of the terribly addicted. And it certainly isn't about everyone in the family getting arrested. It sounds more like a power struggle going on between a teenager and a parent AND a friend who is interfering more than she has a right to do.
However, I admit that the information is very limited here. My advice would still be the same. It's the parents' job to talk to their children about their belief systems. The big mistake was to let the DARE stuff go by in the first place without commenting on the history of drugs in this country, the history of illegal drugs, and the reasons we limit (or don't limit) certain types of drugs.
Personally, I think we are an overmedicated society but not with illegal drugs. We take far too many pharmacutical solutions, prescribed by our family doctors, without finding healthier ways to live first.
If it came down to pain control for me, which wow I hope it never does, I'd pick a few tokes on some marijuana before I'd addict myself to prescription pain killers.
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Pothead Mom or Pillhead Mom?
I grew up with a mother who was addicted to pharmaceuticals from as early as I can remember. Then, after a stint living in New Orleans for 3 years, she became an alcoholic on top of taking numerous pharmaceuticals. At one point in early adolescence, I naively thought I could convert my mother from drinking alcohol to smoking pot. Doing so could have meant the difference between dying if she continued to drink, or possibly living if she switched to pot. Of course, there still would have been the numerous pharmaceuticals she took, but the alcohol was visibly killing her. I have smoked pot since that time, and did so openly in front of my son (who now smokes himself and has a wife who does also). We are all very successful, hard-working and happy people, and have suffered no detrimental effects from smoking pot. In fact, I've never known anyone to suffer detrimental effects from smoking pot (other than the effects caused by it's being illegal) and virtually everyone I know smokes it (most of them are hard-working and many own their own businesses).
Our society needs to quit pretending like marijuana is something it isn't. The most harmful thing about marijuana is the fact that it is illegal. So much harm is done to so many people because of our draconian marijuana laws, and I think schools preaching the anti-drug message and encouraging kids to turn in their parents totally undermines parental authority and is much more harmful to kids than smoking pot could ever be. I don't ever hear of schools telling kids the same about pharmaceuticals, and they've become the most abused drugs lately. No, it's just the opposite with pharmaceuticals -- the schools actually are the ones to initiate children being given Ritalin and amphetamine for ADD. On the one hand, the schools force parents to get their kids on ADD drugs, and on the other hand, they encourage kids to turn their parents in for smoking pot. American society needs to quit sending such mixed signals to kids. That 15 year old doesn't know how lucky he is that his mother smokes marijuana for her pain and pleasure. She could be a raging alcoholic or be addicted to pharmaceuticals (which once started, seems to never end) -- both of which impair people from being able to function. Instead, she partakes of something that makes her giggle and maybe cook some really good food.
Way too much time and money is spent on trying to control marijuana consumption. If we legalized it (as more and more countries have done), we would free up our law enforcement and courts to deal with the really important issues (such as violent crimes) and the genuinely harmful substances (such as pharmaceuticals and alcohol). More than half of all prisoners in federal prisons are there for marijuana consumption (not distributing, but consumption). Since our laws do not allow federal drug sentences to be commuted, violent criminals must be released to make room for prisoners convicted of partaking of marijuana (who are usually notoriously peaceful and usually otherwise law-abiding people). It’s way past due for this madness to end.