Letters to the Editor
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Laurel962 - Typical of War-on-Drugs Double-Standard Mentality
Since alchohol and tobacco are legal and have powerful lobbies, the federal government is happy to apply a double standard between "legal" drugs and "illegal" drugs.
is this really representative of Salon readership?
I don't think so. What makes you make this assumption?
endorsing middle-aged and older adults who still sadly hang around in their free time lighting up and thinking they are cool
Are you implying that smoking pot after some arbitrary age suddenly is "silly"? Not sure what you're asserting here, but I would argue that pot is like any other substance. It can be abused but many people us it, like alcohol, succesfully in moderation. Would anyone who drinks after 30 automatically be a "boozer"? Because I notice you're not qualifying your statement with "heavy pot smokers". You're applying the "stoner" appelation across the board. Double standard.
Also, that some of the controversy was and is that people would get medical permits for the slightest condition ("I have a hangnail! It really really hurts!), and that appears to be the case with the Mom here.
I agree! The medical marijuana lobby is completely misguided and is making it really hard for people who think pot should be treated like any other mild recreational drug (like alcohol and nicotine) to make their case. I can't stand idiots who abuse the "medicinal" angle. They are really ruining it for the rest of us who just want pot viewed for what it is, simply a mild intoxicant, less damaging (physically and socially) than alcohol or nicotine abuse.
This is also further proof that wealthy white people seem to get away with drug use that would put any minority welfare mom straight into jail or rehab
Agreed - which is why pot should not be criminalized for anyone, whites or blacks. Something you agree with yourself in your letter. So the problem here is with law enforcement, not with pot. Wouldn't you agree? But that's not what you're trying to do here. You're just applying a double standard again. Wealthy white people probably get away with more drunk-driving too. But you don't mention that in your one-sided rant. Double standard.
And most work places won't tolerate it, and test for it -- probably why the Mom can't hold a job -- do you guys honestly want someone high on dope doing brain surgery on you? flying the airplane you are on? driving in the car in the next lane? Gee, didn't think so.
Do you want someone who is DRUNK doing brain surgery on you, flying the plane or driving the car in the next lane? Gee, I, didn't think so either. But do "most work places" test for alcohol? Nope. Why not? Because it's legal, so the government trusts us to self-regulate. Why is alcohol legal and pot not? Who the hell knows. But it's definitely a double standard.
-Anonymouse 1
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Kid - lighten the hell up
Ah, I remember the certainty, the dense, white-hot, dwarf-star morality of my adolescence. Living at home. Having been outside, meeting people outside my neighborhood peer group or family... Never.
Kid, lighten the hell up. You're not supposed to masturbate either, are you. Yet there you are, certainly multiple times a week (and if like myself, on occassion, multiple times (or many, multiple times)) a day. And your parents give you a curfew - admit it, you've blown that, haven't you? You've had sex yet? Told your parents and your partner's parents, and gotten their blessings? Have you lied/exaggerated to any friends today to make you seem better that you feel you are? What of the thousands of other transgressions?
Oh, and the big one: have you snuck a drink behind your parents' back? Seven years (half again your entire life) before it's legal to? If not yet, trust me, you will. Often.
Life is sometimes more complicated than it seems. More shades of gray. More nuance. Perhaps you should reflect on your life, to see how well it fits an idealized, normative whole.
Beyond these matters, weed is less harmful than alcohol. Your mother is in PAIN. For which weed helps. The pain of managing two teenaged boys, sure, but physical, chronic back pain. What kind of little monster would wish that on their mother?
Finally, she's only duplicitous because of your unreasonable, binary, unsophisticated, arbitrary concern over unreasonable, one-size-MUST-fit-all rules. Rules which, once you've been places outside your narrow, parochial confines, you'll find don't amount to much.
There's much wisdom, warmth, caring and true love that goes from your mother to you and your brother. Focus - and bathe - in that, rather than on your petulant demand that she live her life as a barely-adolescent boy would. In several years time, you'll be glad that you did.
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Best argument against pot
If you think pot doesn't destroy your mind, read the strange letters from brickbat and traidep. These two really need to put down the bong and go for a really long walk until the clouds in their brains start to clear. Pot makes you stupid. That is clear. Stupid is a sad way to go through life.
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RE: Folger// down to brass tacks
Yeah, pot can make you stupid. But stupid ain't illegal, is it?
If your parents' stupidity was grounds for either leaving home or ordering them around, all kids would either be vagrants or dictators!
But no, seriously, everybody's got good points here, but the real issue is not whether or not the mom's a dorky hippy (though she sounds like she is) or even whether pot should be legal (though it should), but whether or not she's functional and present as a parent. If she's with it, then her kid should get off his high horse; if she's out of it, then she should stop getting high. But only the folks around her can really tell that--we're all just flapping our lips beyond that point, don't you think?
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What about the boy?
Leaving aside the issue of the mother's drug use, some thought needs to be given to her son.
Yes, teenagers can be awful, insufferably smug know-it-alls at times, but their emotions are issues with family are real. Whether the mother's drug habit is truly harmful or not, her son sees it as harmful as, as such, it is harming him. If nothing else the poor kid needs some space from his parents in order to go through some of the uglier phases of maturing. Perhaps the letter writer would be better served by offering a place for her friend's son to crash when his family is bearing down on him. It would be good for him, good for his mother and, in the long run, probably better for their relationship. I credit the frequent school vacations I spent staying with my grandmother with saving my relationship with my parents.
15 year olds are still learning the emotional tools they need to survive in a world of contradictions. A space apart from these stresses would do much to help him develop those tools. And, frankly, if the son really is threatening to move out, better he move out to the home of a trusted family friend than to God-only-knows where.