Not sure I care right now that my kid is smoking weed

[Anonymous]

OP, you need to care. Even occasional pot smoking can worsen outcomes with COVID. Do some research so you can care and try to do something about it.

[Anonymous]

Weed is the only way I am saying sane during all this, as a parent of two.

Look at the research on smoking and COVID lung damage. Even smoking a few times. Maybe give it up for a bit so you stay around to parent those kids?

[Anonymous]

Who are all these pot-smoking parents and parents who have just decided to let it slide at home? Pot is a gateway drug. No one starts with coke or heroin. No one knows who is going to get addicted to pot and move on to chase bigger and more dangerous highs while everyone else in their group of friends continues with "just" recreational pot use. Are you ok with your kid being the one that can't stop? Add to that the fact that today's pot is something like 25 times more potent than pot that was available 30 years ago. OP, you need to care - we all should.

[Anonymous]

About 10% of pot smokers are addicted in a psychological sense of not necessarily physically. Allowing this at home, when kids have extra time in their hands and nothing else to do, is risking development of addiction.

Pot feeds depression by acting on seratonin channels. So if there’s an underlying reason they’re self-medicating, it would be far better to treat the depression directly with therapy or meds.

And, where is your kid getting pot during self-isolation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should care. I know someone who smoked a bit of weed around that time (started as a way to relax after a tragedy) and after a couple of years was a paranoid schizophrenic. No family history of any psychiatric disorders at all. A really promising life completely down the drain. Heartbreaking.

You have no idea what he was doing he could have easily hit his head or eaten bad meat w a parasite.

Pot has been statistically linked to paranoid schizophrenia in people who already have a genetic predisposition. Parasites in your food, not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who are all these pot-smoking parents and parents who have just decided to let it slide at home? Pot is a gateway drug. No one starts with coke or heroin. No one knows who is going to get addicted to pot and move on to chase bigger and more dangerous highs while everyone else in their group of friends continues with "just" recreational pot use. Are you ok with your kid being the one that can't stop? Add to that the fact that today's pot is something like 25 times more potent than pot that was available 30 years ago. OP, you need to care - we all should.

Almost every single addict starts with booze. Your reefer madness thinking is outdated. I do NOT want my kids smoking until adulthood/college. Just like I don't want them pouring themselves a big as glass of sauvignon blanc on Friday after school for happy hour.

But something like 20% of Americans used adult use or medical weed in legal states last year. You can be addicted to gambling and shopping too- addicts are going to addict. Trust me, you know parents who smoke weed. Boring ass, regular parents.

Pot is way better than 20 years ago. Its more refined and has product controls, which is awesome. You smoke significantly less than a bag full of seeds or stems and the legal market has seen product quality go up and price in real dollars go down. Low dose edibles are great for all kinds of things that people reach for bottles of prescription pills for. We did a huge disservice to ourselves by making this schedule 1 (which was not based on data or science, it was entirely political) which took away decades of research on what we can and can't tread with THC and CBD compounds or how they react with other medicines.

Yes you should 100% care that your kid is hurting a developing brain. Like I said, its akin to alcohol for me. That's not OK for children.

Don't conflate the two issues though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if he went to jail?

That's a HUGE what if.

I’d call the police

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should care. I know someone who smoked a bit of weed around that time (started as a way to relax after a tragedy) and after a couple of years was a paranoid schizophrenic. No family history of any psychiatric disorders at all. A really promising life completely down the drain. Heartbreaking.

You have no idea what he was doing he could have easily hit his head or eaten bad meat w a parasite.

He had very good medical care and was tested for everything. He's been this way for decades now.

Of course, schizophrenia usually manifests in males in their late teens or early twenties. And he could have been smoking pot to cope with initial presentation.

Have you heard of correlation?

Thank you

You think Harvard Medical School doesn't understand the concept of correlation?

Seriously. Did nobody bother to read the link somebody else posted here on page 2? https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/teens-who-smoke-pot-at-risk-for-later-schizophrenia-psychosis-201103071676

Pot is also strongly linked to lower IQs in developing brains (through about age 25 in boys). Plenty of studies if you google. Focus on the studies that track kids as they mature.

[Anonymous]

I think of pot like drinking.
If my kid was drinking at home alone, I'd be really worried about that.

In the immortal words of Cher Horowitz,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the "oh, well" attitude. No way no how with this bullsh*t.

You all keep saying this, but what is the alternative?

This is a good question and it's something we should all be talking about. I have a 15 YO DS and a young male family member who died of a drug overdose (started with pot about this age, of course), so it's a real concern of mine. Frankly, I don't know what I would do in OP's shoes, but I sure as hell wouldn't throw in the towel, refuse to parent and/or be confrontational, and just accept it.

Some thoughts if it was my kid:

1) He would be out of his fancy private school, like that week. Going to this school is a privilege and he knows he's expected to hold up his end of the deal. This would be viewed as a massive failure.

2) I would be in touch with the parents of all of his friends and would have a serious conversation with all of them. Some probably wouldn't care of there kids were into pot (witness: OP), but I would find out which ones are, who his "dealer" is and put a stop to the social supply chain.

3) He would be getting a part time job. Let him deal with the issue of drug testing. But smoking pot = too much time on his hands, so it's time to go to work. Fast food, busing tables, grocery shelve stocking -- I don't care. But he's going into the real work world.

4) Worst case scenario: We would move out of the area. I'm serious about this. Nothing more important than my kids' health and well being is worth our life in DC. I'm not saying things would be automatically better anywhere else, but a place that does not put so much emphasis on material wealth and success, and thus breed habits like this in teens who feel like they are not measuring up, might be what he needs.

5) Therapy, for him and the whole family.

Er, you think that people who work in the restaurant industry or retail (since those are the jobs you listed mostly) never smoke weed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if he went to jail?

That's a HUGE what if.

I’d call the police

Decriminalization is happening almost everywhere. For good reason. We used weed and mandatory minimums to lock of up a shit ton of brown people and the threat of it to "scare" but never actually harm most wealthy white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should care. I know someone who smoked a bit of weed around that time (started as a way to relax after a tragedy) and after a couple of years was a paranoid schizophrenic. No family history of any psychiatric disorders at all. A really promising life completely down the drain. Heartbreaking.

Medical evidence that pot caused this?

There are links between pot use and schizophrenia, although hardly involving "a bit of weed". But schizophrenia also emerges around the same age that someone is most likely to be experimenting with weed. But even then, it's more a matter of the weed triggering existing predisposition.

[Anonymous]

^^ also, the pp mentioned a tragedy prior to the weed use. Trauma can also be a triggering factor for schizophrenia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the "oh, well" attitude. No way no how with this bullsh*t.

You all keep saying this, but what is the alternative?

This is a good question and it's something we should all be talking about. I have a 15 YO DS and a young male family member who died of a drug overdose (started with pot about this age, of course), so it's a real concern of mine. Frankly, I don't know what I would do in OP's shoes, but I sure as hell wouldn't throw in the towel, refuse to parent and/or be confrontational, and just accept it.

Some thoughts if it was my kid:

1) He would be out of his fancy private school, like that week. Going to this school is a privilege and he knows he's expected to hold up his end of the deal. This would be viewed as a massive failure.

2) I would be in touch with the parents of all of his friends and would have a serious conversation with all of them. Some probably wouldn't care of there kids were into pot (witness: OP), but I would find out which ones are, who his "dealer" is and put a stop to the social supply chain.

3) He would be getting a part time job. Let him deal with the issue of drug testing. But smoking pot = too much time on his hands, so it's time to go to work. Fast food, busing tables, grocery shelve stocking -- I don't care. But he's going into the real work world.

4) Worst case scenario: We would move out of the area. I'm serious about this. Nothing more important than my kids' health and well being is worth our life in DC. I'm not saying things would be automatically better anywhere else, but a place that does not put so much emphasis on material wealth and success, and thus breed habits like this in teens who feel like they are not measuring up, might be what he needs.

5) Therapy, for him and the whole family.

Er, you think that people who work in the restaurant industry or retail (since those are the jobs you listed mostly) never smoke weed?

I worked in the kitchen of a french restaurant during my college years. Hash smoke was THICK in the kitchen, mostly the chef, who was one of the owners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the "oh, well" attitude. No way no how with this bullsh*t.

You all keep saying this, but what is the alternative?

This is a good question and it's something we should all be talking about. I have a 15 YO DS and a young male family member who died of a drug overdose (started with pot about this age, of course), so it's a real concern of mine. Frankly, I don't know what I would do in OP's shoes, but I sure as hell wouldn't throw in the towel, refuse to parent and/or be confrontational, and just accept it.

Some thoughts if it was my kid:

1) He would be out of his fancy private school, like that week. Going to this school is a privilege and he knows he's expected to hold up his end of the deal. This would be viewed as a massive failure.

2) I would be in touch with the parents of all of his friends and would have a serious conversation with all of them. Some probably wouldn't care of there kids were into pot (witness: OP), but I would find out which ones are, who his "dealer" is and put a stop to the social supply chain.

3) He would be getting a part time job. Let him deal with the issue of drug testing. But smoking pot = too much time on his hands, so it's time to go to work. Fast food, busing tables, grocery shelve stocking -- I don't care. But he's going into the real work world.

4) Worst case scenario: We would move out of the area. I'm serious about this. Nothing more important than my kids' health and well being is worth our life in DC. I'm not saying things would be automatically better anywhere else, but a place that does not put so much emphasis on material wealth and success, and thus breed habits like this in teens who feel like they are not measuring up, might be what he needs.

5) Therapy, for him and the whole family.

Er, you think that people who work in the restaurant industry or retail (since those are the jobs you listed mostly) never smoke weed?

Move where? There is absolutely no place you're going to move to where your kid isn't going to find pot.