Reply to My 15 year old admitted to trying pot

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "My 15 year old admitted to trying pot"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, the person who wrote about complex meds and speaking with the psychiatrist is absolutely spot on and I suspect it is someone who works with adolescents with substance abuse issues and ADHD, as I do.  I cannot emphasize enough how good that advice was.  When I treat adolescents who have substance abuse issues it is almost always because they are self-medicating and in my experience, pot is the self-medicator for ADHD that is not being treated medically.

The key to this is finding the right ADHD medication and being insistent that using any other type of drug is not acceptable.  Go to a psychiatrist who specializes in adolescent ADHD, sometimes they have wrap around services for executive functioning skills and organization as well.

Ignore everyone who says you are overreacting, you are not.[/quote]

so would you force him to take adhd meds?[/quote]

Yes absolutely.  Because he needs them.  If he doesn't take the appropriate monitored prescribed medication he will smoke pot in order to focus, that's what I see happen time and time again.  I would try for medicinal marijuana if the doctor would approve of that but I wouldn't be comfortable letting my teen smoke whatever he could get.[/quote]

NP here, and I am not advocating for pot to be prescribed for teenagers- but I was diagnosed at 8 with ADHD, was on meds till 13 and decided I didn't want them in my system and stopped. As an adult, I struggled with my ADHD while trying to work full time and finish a grad program, and tried medication again as an adult... I can say from experience that ADHD meds are much harder and more mind altering then pot. I use pot as an adult at times recreationally and it is far better for me than any ADHD med I have tried, and I tried many...

self- medicating and drug abuse is serious... but I personally dislike hard drugs prescribed by doctors that change your personality and the hypocrisy when it comes to pot. don't delude yourselves that ADHD meds are legal so they must be harmless, and pot is bad and messes with your brain because it is illegal... this is where it gets complex in my opinion... You said you were depressed about your son trying pot the first time and now you want to force him to take speed? WTF?

The biggest problem is there is no perfect ADHD medication, effects and dosages vary for each user... it is hard as a kid who is already being singled out for being different to go through months of being a guinea pig hoping to find the right RX, while you go through manic stages, stop eating, or feel depressed for no reason... I am not saying let him off the hook for trying an illegal substance, and especially not at school...but this forced meds convo is terrifying, I am lucky my parents trusted me to make that call for myself- I can't imagine being forced to take meds that effect me as strongly as these meds do...You have no idea what you are even forcing on them...
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics