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<p>The one time that it had any noticeable affect on me, I left the group I was with and went for a long walk. It was a lot more interesting.</p>
<p>I would come down HARD on the kid. It is stupidity, illegal and against everything I’ve tried to instill in them. I would consider this a real problem and wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p>A friend of mine’s son refused to take a blood test when some hard drug was found in his car. To placate the family, his reason was that it would show some pot as he had smoked in the last few weeks. That is supposed to be comforting? Apparently it was.</p>
<p>If it were against everything you’d tried to instill in him, then wouldn’t the failure be as much yours as his?</p>
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<p>This strikes me as the kind of statement made by someone who doesn’t realize that it’s time to let the kid make his own mistakes and learn from the consequences—not the ones that you impose, but the ones that naturally flow from his actions.</p>
<p>And what does it mean to “come down HARD”? Would you yell? Stomp around? Cut off all support? Physically accost him? Disown him? Embarrass him publicly? Turn him in to the authorities? All of these would meet the common definition of “coming down hard” while also being completely useless.</p>
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And so it should be. Marijuana is both less toxic and less addictive than nearly any other common recreational drug other than caffeine. I am certainly in no hurry for my son to try pot, and would be just as glad if he never did, but it wouldn’t worry me particularly if I knew he had. Coke, or meth, or heroin? That would worry me a lot.</p>
<p>Nothing makes me beat my head against the wall more than people who talk about “drugs” as if they were all the same. Saying “drugs are dangerous” is like saying “snakes are dangerous,” as if there were no difference between a garter snake and a cobra.</p>
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<p>Well duh. I’d say 95% of us youngsters are thoroughly repulsed by the idea of 50 year olds pressing their wrinkly, sweaty bodies up against each other and turning raisins into whine/making the beast with two back aches.</p>
<p>Pot is illegal. He is carrying the pot around. He got it from someone, possibly a dealer. Dealers of drugs are not the type of people you want in your kid’s life or yours. Most importantly, he has brought the illegal drug into YOUR house, disrupting the sanctuary of your home. It’s not that he has taken a toke at a party, he’s brought the evidence home. You bet, I’ll come down hard. </p>
<p>Drug education at a center and tests. I don’t want a druggie in my house. Won’t happen knowingly. Have younger kids and don’t need this influence. Also family has a propensity for addictions anyways and this is just asking for trouble. Heck, I don’t allow smoking cigarettes in my house. When the risks and consequences no longer involve me–no phone calls for bail, an attorney, sad story, beat up, bad urine test while driving, and all the other things that could happen, then it truly is not my business. But when the consequences would directly involve me, I want it clear that I absolutely want no part of this. To ignore that statement is truly disrespectful.</p>
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<p>I don’t really understand things like this. i don’t think that it is necessarily fair or anything, perhaps there should be adjustments of the punishment for possession of alcohol depending on the amount, similar to how possession of marijuana is prosecuted. But the general gist of people making these statements is that they don’t understand how a drug, weed, is being taken so lightly. </p>
<p>alcohol is also a drug, and it is a drug which is much more damaging and risky than marijuana. the most basic comparison is that you can easily die from an excess consumption of alcohol, whereas you can’t overdose on marijuana. alcohol also generally causes more significant long term damage than marijuana, especially if the marijuana is not smoked. </p>
<p>same with people who are like, WOAH I WOULD FREAK OUT I CAN’T HAVE MY KID DOING DRUGS, NO DRUGS IN MY HOUSE. again, alcohol is also drug, yet most people who claim this have a much more lenient view on drinking. </p>
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<p>haha i smoke very rarely but am friends with a lot of people who smoke regularly and tend to be hanging out in the room when they’re smoking, but i actually find it really entertaining! just having conversations and the stuff they say is so hilarious and board games are really fun, planet earth is always great too–everyone freaks out over the fuzzy cute little animals!</p>
<p>"Just saw on the news tonight - apparently Massachusetts’ whopping $100 civil fine for marijuana is kind of unenforceable. If you don’t pay it… nothing happens. There are no provisions in the law for any sort of prosecution for ignoring the fine. They sampled a few towns and found out less than half of the fines issued had actually been paid.</p>
<p>So a 16 year old with a beer ends up in court. A 16 year old smoking a joint… gets off pretty much scot free."</p>
<p>The fine is different for people under age 18. You are also suppposed to attend a series of drug classes.</p>
<p>*say 95% of us youngsters are thoroughly repulsed by the idea of 50 year olds pressing their wrinkly, sweaty bodies up against each other and turning raisins into whine/making the beast with two back aches. *</p>
<p>I would say that the 50 yr olds are thoroughly amused and disgusted by teens trying to act older by smoking/having sex. It doesn’t make you look more mature and worldly- actually the opposite.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I used to live with a guy who was a cook and dealt pot on the side ( not uncommon in the service industry in the '70s- one of my current friends used to work with a woman who sold coke to her restaurant coworkers- in the '80s, who was a huge volunteer in the school district which she parlayed into a full time job). </p>
<p>Very sweet guy, encouraged me to take my GED and attend college.
He didn’t prey on little kids, he sold to a couple people who came to our house who then sold to other people that they knew. I didn’t know the extent till afterwards as it didn’t dominate his day.</p>
<p>My mother also allowed my brother to grow and sell marijuana in our house while he was in high school, after our dad died. ( she supposedly feared that if she cracked down on bro, he would turn * homosexual* ! oh noes! Instead he grew up believing that the world revolved around him and his career in the air force as an electrical engineer didn’t do much to change that- from the looks of him, he prefers beer currently)</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone younger than 21 should be using any sort of substance, but after their brain matures, I think moderation is the key and don’t think alcohol is superior to pot.</p>
<p>Youth in their teens/20’s are often drawn to experimenting with pot/alcohol, which probably explains why the atmosphere at colleges seems dominant by the students preference.</p>
<p>When looking at colleges, we preferred ( without using it as a stated criteria), schools that seemed to favor pot usage over alcohol. Lower key, less obnoxious behavior.</p>
<p>My concern with pot would be- not regulated so if you don’t know exactly where it came from, you don’t know if it has been treated with something or exposed to harmful chemicals. I don’t see it as a " gateway" drug for most people, any more than cigarettes would be.</p>
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<p>Psh, whatevs, I don’t do either of those. I’d say those are best left for people in the 20-29 age group, it suits them the best.</p>
<p>But I’d like to point out that the instant a teenager smokes/has sex, they suddenly become much more worldly-wise and sophisticated because y’know.</p>
<p>^I haven’t the faintest clue of what that last sentence means. </p>
<p>My mom has smoked pot my whole life. If they found out that I smoke (which I don’t) they would say “Finally! Welcome to the family.” Which is the exact reaction that they had when they found out that I drank a beer on the beach in Costa Rica :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Their only requirement was that I was either at home or with my close friends only. Preferably, they would want me to get weed from them so that they knew it was safe.</p>
<p>If you got the weed from your parents, that would take all the fun out of it.</p>
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<p>I don’t really know either, but emeraldkity4’s response wasn’t even valid because she didn’t use any adorable euphemisms like I did.</p>
<p>I would voice concerns about the legal and health aspects of marijuana use.</p>
<p>I would hope he wouldn’t get caught by the law.</p>
<p>I would think of it as a rite of passage that as he got older, he’d likely give up.</p>
<p>I think that pot should be legal and taxed. I think that people who are my age who smoke dope are silly. By the time people are middle age, they should have found more interesting diversions.</p>
<p>Agreed Northstarmom.</p>
<p>Am surprised that the FA issue didn’t come up. The FAFSA has a question about illegal drugs use convictions. My understanding is that students are not entitled to FAFSA based aid if they’ve had a conviction. I’ve told my kids that they’re out of their beloved LAC should any legal trouble ensue that would cause loss of FA, and in that case, CC and state university would suffice. Though I don’t agree with this rather mean spirited rule, I do appreciate how it simplifies the debate, not risking your education being the bottom line.</p>
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<p>True! And to make it even less attractive, the varieties should have names like “blue Studebaker” and “jitterbug”.</p>
<p>Although the stuff didn’t affect me in a positive enough way to make me want to keep doing it, I did notice something that makes me believe it’s psychologically beneficial for some people. For about a week after smoking, I felt an unusual calmness. I remember thinking that someone with chronic anxiety would probably benefit from it.</p>
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Do you feel the same way about alcohol, and if not, why not?</p>
<p>Great Lakes Mom, I believe that was one reason for the Mass law making marijuana possession a civil rather than a criminal offense. A single criminal conviction for drugs disqualifies you for FA, as well as for many jobs in law enforcement or working for the Federal gov’t. The feeling was that possessing pot once shouldn’t have a lifelong penalty.</p>
<p>That may be true, but I believe it still should carry more consequences for kids under 21 - or at least under 18.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse: would you come down harder on your kid for doing pot than for, say, consuming alcohol?</p>
<p>Not harder, IBfootballer. HARDer. :D</p>