<p>I would be surprised. Because according to my son, he hasn’t been to a single party yet, after two years of college, at which anyone was smoking pot.</p>
<p>By contrast to my own experience of never having been to a single party during college where people <em>weren’t</em> smoking pot.</p>
<p>I’m not delusional. I have found that weed is something that people really don’t talk about openly and I was trying to start a discussion on here about it so I could get a clearer picture of people’s views. The fact is, I can’t go to my dad and say “hey, hypothetically if I did pot and you found out, how would you react” or “what do you think about weed” because he would to the stock parent reaction: “don’t do drugs drugs are bad” but that has nothing to do with his actual viewpoints on marijuana use. I don’t think we invented weed, I was just trying to see “behind the curtain” of parenting and see what some peoples actual views are. I have older friends (30+ yr old) that smoke. I know friends parents who smoke. I don’t think its a big deal at all, but that doesn’t mean that everyone thinks the same way that I do.</p>
<p>Re post #21: Either your son is hanging with an an unusually straight crowd… or not quite telling you everything.* Though it was always my experience, back in the day, that people were generally heavy drinkers or stoners, but not both – so a third possibility would be that your son might be hanging out with the hard drinkers. (Then again, I don’t remember where your son attends college… so maybe he’s at a place where the campus culture is somewhat different).</p>
<p>I know I am joining in later - but, I am not sure what the “ivy” has to do with it. Can someone elaborate?</p>
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<p>He’s at the University of Chicago. And hangs out with neither heavy drinkers nor stoners. Not that there are huge numbers of either there. But open pot smoking, in dorms or at parties (certainly on-campus parties) is, from what he tells me – and I have every reason to believe him – not even remotely as common as it was when I was in college, back before the Flood. (For whatever reason, it was commonly referred to as “dope” rather than “pot” back in my day, at least among people I knew.) </p>
<p>Maybe he’s tried pot, maybe he hasn’t. I’m not going to say on a public message board. Speaking purely hypothetically, of course, I have reason to believe that he wouldn’t enjoy it any more than I did. (Not that disliking its effects necessarily stopped me, of course.)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be happy but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I think at son’s college alcohol is more the item of choice or it is easier to get. In his HS pot was just as common as alcohol if not more so. And the users range from the AP Scholar to the failing student. I have heard quite a number of kids and from the pediatrician that pot is prevalent in the HS and MS in our area. In Ca a college student can easily get a medical pot card and go buy it at a dispensary. Not hard at all to get.</p>
<p>My family has a zero tolerance policy. I might MAYBE get away with it once since that kind of behavior would be very out of character for me, but if my parents had any reason to believe it was more than a one time thing I am sure they would stop cosigning my loans. I guess compared to the other posts here that sounds strict, but I make it a point to avoid being around drugs as much as possible anyway so it is really a non-issue. I don’t think my parents and I have ever even had this conversation.</p>
<p>My sister, who is in high school, is drug tested at random by my parents because she has been caught several times by my parents and the school with weed and alcohol. In this house that’s just the sort of thing you wait to do until you’re 100% responsible for yourself, if you’re going to do it.</p>
<p>In fifteen years, smoking marijuana will cause as much consternation as drinking liquor.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you what is really causing me consternation. After having engaged in total pot abstinence for the last 27 of my almost 57 years, I suddenly am imaging how relaxing it would be to smoke a joint but I refuse to give myself permission to do so. Now that is real existential middle aged angst. ;)</p>
<p>^^^^^ Best post of the day. Thanks for making me laugh.</p>
<p>^^haha i have a number of friends whose parents definitely still smoke now and then. they don’t know that their kids have found their stash though :P</p>
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<p>I think that although your son might not have seen a lot of weed usage at parties and in dorms, this has nothing to do with how prevalent it may be on campus. He obviously wouldn’t see any open pot smoking since weed is illegal, whereas alcohol is much more commonly accepted as a part of college and is considered not as bad because it is legalized. The illegality of pot forces people to be more careful, so while it may be used often on campus, one would not see it unless they had friends who were smoking or wanted to smoke themselves. </p>
<p>for instance, in my dorm i know that when people were called with alcohol, they were reprimanded and the RA poured the alcohol down the drain, and they may have been forced to take an alcohol education course. contrastingly, if people were caught with marijuana (or there was a suspicious smell), the RA was told to call the police directly and the students were confronted by the police with the possibility of town involvement, instead of just a college issue. </p>
<p>because of this, people tend to be a lot more careful about using weed than alcohol, and don’t often do it out in the open. so even though your son may have not seen it at parties, i know that at the majority of parties at my school weed is confined to closed rooms upstairs, where only members of the house and their friends are permitted. especially at fraternities, where most big parties are, the house doesn’t want to risk being caught with marijuana, because the consequences would be worse than being caught with alcohol.<br>
it is also possible to live in a dorm and not realize how much weed is being smoked. when kids smoke in the dorms, they often take a lot of precautions–plugging the doors with towels, opening windows, letting fans run. i know that a lot of my friends who like weed have invested in vaporizers–supposedly healthier since there’s no smoking, and doesn’t leave a detectable odor. </p>
<p>basically, weed is definitely still very popular at most college campuses, including mine which is an ivy. out of all the people i know i could probably count those who have never smoked or tried weed on one hand. but because schools are usually strict about their policies against weed, more so than their policies against alcohol, (which doesn’t really make sense considering that you can die from excessive alcohol consumption but not from smoking a lot of weed) kids have learned to be careful. so really all that is said by your son saying that he rarely/never sees weed usage is that those who smoke are successful in their attempts to hide their habit.</p>
<p>also i thinkkk dope is usually used nowadays to refer to cocaine. definitely don’t want to mix those two up!</p>
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<p>Yes, but weed is illegal so if they don’t at least seem to be strict on it then if someone gets arrested or something it looks really bad publicity wise. Weed isn’t as dangerous as alcohol or even cigarettes but that’s the way it is.</p>
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One of the odd side effects of the ballot question that decriminalized pot in Massachusetts a few years back is that 18- to 21-year-olds can get in more trouble for drinking than for smoking weed. Buying alcohol underage is a misdemeanor with a $300 fine, while possession of <1 oz. of marijuana is a civil offense with a $100 fine.</p>
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yes, i understand this, according to the law it does make sense that colleges are more strict in enforcing rules when it comes to marijuana rather than alcohol. i was just trying to note that it seems kind of silly when you consider the effects of each substance on the kids. but this gets into legalization and such which is a whole other topic</p>
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<p>that is actually very interesting, i wonder if/how it has affected college students in MA</p>
<p>I guess times have changed. Back in my college and law school days (in New Haven and Cambridge, mid-1970’s), people smoked pot openly at parties, and there was nothing unusual about seeing someone smoking a joint while walking down the street. Nor do I remember anyone being worried about getting in trouble with the administration, so long as they weren’t dealing.</p>
<p>It was also extremely easy to buy pot in Manhattan, if one were so inclined. There were always dealers at certain street corners, and at specific locations in particular parks, peddling their wares to all and sundry, regardless of age. Including, for example, at St. Catherine’s Park right in the middle of the Upper East Side. (I remember that because it was near where I lived, and I would see them every time I walked by.)</p>
<p>No more, of course; the pot dealers vanished about the same time the hookers did. It all seems rather hard to believe, in retrospect.</p>
<p>Actually, as far as I know, the easiest way to buy weed in Manhattan these days is to call an 800 number and ordered it delivered. See [New</a> York Marijuana Delivery Services Generate Plenty of Green | NYU Livewire](<a href=“http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/livewire/archived/new_york_mariju_1/]New”>http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/livewire/archived/new_york_mariju_1/)
[Inside</a> Dope - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0326/078.html]Inside”>Inside Dope)</p>
<p>No one “vanished”-- they just got more sophisticated.</p>
<p>(And, FWIW – my son told me this about 10 years ago, so it’s been going on a while.)</p>
<p>And in California you just get a medical ID card and buy it from a dispensary.</p>
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<p>This is why pot-smoking will be mainstream within our lifetimes. It’s not 30-, 40-, or even 50-somethings who are keeping drug hysteria alive. It’s the 70-year-olds who still run the country. As soon as our most powerful, aging lawmakers start dropping off—and, may I say, the sooner the better—we’ll see the most draconian drug laws and Puritanical attitudes going the way of the dodo.</p>
<p>I read recently that in California, over 50% of college students have prescriptions for medical pot. I guess it’s the new fake ID. Apparently, it’s one more thing to put on that packing list.</p>
<p>A friend of mine was cleaning her teenage son’s bedroom and discovered a stash of pot. (Son was in high school at the time.) My friend appropriated it and she and her husband smoked it. She told me it was the best pot she had ever smoked, but didn’t dare ask her son where he got it.</p>
<p>She never confronted her son about it. Later she learned that the kid told his younger brother that his pot was missing and that he couldn’t figure out where he’d put it or where it went.</p>
<p>* she learned that the kid told his younger brother that his pot was missing and that he couldn’t figure out where he’d put it or where it went.
*
The memory is the first to go
;)</p>