Letters to the Editor
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Samlor is right
I really disagree with Cary this time. If the mother wants to smoke pot she should be able to do so in full view of her family. The DARE programs and The Partnership for a Drug Free American are just money making vehicles for people who don't know what they're talking about....especially if the mother has back trouble. Pot is really helpful for pain and a lot less harmful in the long run than burning up the stomach lining taking NSAIDs. They need to explain to the child that the anti-marajuana laws are ludicrous. This is a weed that was legal and even prescribed until fairly recently. It was outlawed because blacks and Mexicans smoked it and the government wanted more ways to persecute and arrest these people. Both parents should explain to this child, and his brother, how these crazy laws came to be and the harm these have caused many people. While they're at it they could tell them how many people make huge amounts of money and small amounts of money off of this "Drug War". They have a chance to truthful with this kid. Of course the mother should never have tried to sneak around and smoke..she should just smoke it and if she wants to keep clear air for her kids then she should go outside and smoke. Every parent I knew whilst raising my kids smoked pot..some more..some infrequently. The kids are in ther thirties and forties now and turned out fine. DARE is a moneymaking crock and they should let their kids know that.
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It's not about the legality
This isn't really about whether pot is/isn't should/shouldn't be legal. I think Cary hit it right on the head. This is about addictive behavior and about how that behavior affects the addict and the people closest to her or him.
Being part of a family (traditional, mixed, totally non-traditional, whatever) does mean that the people need to sometimes bend, sometimes be firm with - and for - one another. Add the addiction, and a not so simple (but commonplace) life situation goes belly up.
I think the LW is right when she says "I can tell her the lies, justifications, sneaking, self-medication, blame-shifting and defiance don't seem all that different to me than an alcoholic's little tricks. I can tell her what I see is self-destructive and reckless." I don't think the LW's concern has anything to do with whether pot is legal. Alcohol is legal, and if the behavior she's talking about were related to alcoholism, it would be just as destructive.
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High Times
This issue struck me because I grew up with a mother who was always stoned, and went through the same stages of resistance it sounds like the son has gone through. The threats don't work. And while Cary's answer is great, I want to say that a perpetually high mom is not quite the same as a mom distracted in other ways. Pot, while an okay recreation for some, creates a very distinctive and pernicious haze when used to excess, and clouds and hobbles a mom's ability to engage properly and, in effect, mother properly. It's an addiction not far removed from heavier drug problems in that in brings along all kinds of contingent issues of addiction and their consequences. Addiction changes you so that your priorities are scrambled, with the drug, defense of its use, denial etc. taking the lead.
Of course the right thing for the mother to do is quit being altered all the time, quit smoking pot. But she probably won't. So the kid has to do what the children of addicts all have to do: get very clear on what a disservice this kind of formative environment was, and do the work required to heal from it. The kid in the letter is not going to change his mother's ways. If he really needs to move out, fine. But the damage is done, and the real task before him is to start attending to the effects of having a mother who in a very real way wasn't really there. THERE there. I wish him good luck, and I salute him for recognizing so early and so completely that something is wrong. He just needs now to enlarge his perspective of the problem so that the focus is less on the evils of pot and more on the spectrum of issues surrounding an emotionally/mentally absent mother, one who chooses to be forever out to lunch.
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The kid will lose
From my experience if an addict(and MOM is one)has to choose between the drugs or the family she's gonna pick the drugs.She will lie about her using,she will blame others and any other excuse she can come up with to continue to use. If the son is smart he should turn her in to the proper authorities.Mom needs professional help and the rest of the family needs help too.
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This isn't about DARE or Harmlessness or Legality or Which Substance
As MANY other wise people have noted. All the yelling about whether pot should be legal (it should be) or DARE is toxic (it is) or the kid is overly-righteous and power-tripping (he is) or alcohol and nicotine are more damaging to society than pot (they are) is totally off-topic.
If someone presents ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR, it's a problem and should be addressed.
Based on the description in the letter (and we have to assume it's accurate), the mom is displaying ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR which is harmful to her and her family.
Period.
-Anonymouse 1
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Someone's speaking in jargon
"It's an addiction not far removed from heavier drug problems in that in brings along all kinds of contingent issues of addiction and their consequences."
No offense, Violet, but this is what we in the business call hoodoo.
What the hell does that sentence mean? Sounds like double talk designed to inflate the importance of what might be a minor bad habit.
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Eric Free -- this is not about segregation or Jim Crow
I was just waiting for this defense of Marijuana:
"Too bad you weren't around to say that to those poor misguided people sitting in at lunch counters and riding those buses down south a few years ago. You could have saved them a few deaths, some busted heads and a few church bombings. But nothing would have changed."
Yep, ma is just like Rosa Parks . . .
Do any of the Marijuana backers have any sense of proportion -- by no stretch of the imagination is a voluntary choice to smoke pot the same as being the subject of Jim Crow . . . and if you do not understand that .....