Would you rather your 16-year-old... (teenagers, accident, get married, girlfriend)
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Using a gun does not equal killing. Having sex does not equal having a baby.
Weed is illegal where I live. It's legal for my 16 year old to shoot a gun at the range as long as I'm with her. It's legal for her to drink alcohol as long as I provide it and she consumes it in my presence. I don't necessarily agree with the law about marijuana but I follow the law and raise my kids to do the same. If it becomes legal here, my answer will change.
I would also say none, with one exception: If I lived in a rural area where hunting was a common thing, I might be OK with a teenager using a shotgun. But even then only if he or she were with an adult on a hunting trip. Many of my southern relatives live in the country and were old hands at handling a rifle at that age.
Back in the days before I mended my ways, I was an emancipated, gun-toting hunter, sometimes free from supervision, at age 12. But I'd had plenty of instruction and supervision in the years before that.
My biggest objection to cannabis is the missionary complex it gives to cannabis users. It's really obnoxious. People who are stoned on weed also repeat the same thing over and over. It makes them sound stupid and boring. Plus it is obnoxious.
It is not true that cannabis causes zero deaths. People get stoned and it impairs their driving skills and they get into traffic wrecks and kill other people and maybe themselves. Heavy equipment operators and train engineers have caused severe wrecks and killed people because they were using cannabis at work.
As for health issues, no one knows because none of it has ever been documented. It does cause mental birth defects in children and it is looking a lot like it is causing heart problems in serious users, which is coming to light now that it is legalized and people will confess that they have been using it.
It is also well documented to cause jail time and criminal records.
All of the above re cannabis is wrong. ALL of it. What's a "mental birth defect" anyway? Definitely no link to heart disease, nor any link to traffic accidents. Just testing "positive" for marijuana has nothing to do with marijuana intoxication, all it shows is that you have indulged in cannabis use sometime in the last month or more. 100% of those fatal traffic accidents involved a driver over the legal limit for ALCOHOL.
There are millions of people who have used marijuana for decades - 50 or 60 years. Tons of available data, and nothing showing any negative health consequences.
No one has ever caused a train wreck due to marijuana use. A report that an engineer showed "traces" of marijuana byproducts in a urine test did not show current intoxication. The engineer was driving below the speed limit but there was an piece of repair equipment sitting on the tracks where it was not supposed to be. That was the cause of the accident - a train takes a long time to stop when it is going 106 mph.
Alcohol use on the other hand has a long and well-documented history of being at the bottom of many types of accidents, including train wrecks.
I use medical marijuana legally. No jail time. No criminal record. Put that in your pipe and vape it.
Using a gun at the range or for home defense is fine with me. My daughter's been shooting at the range since she turned 9. I'm also okay with a beer or a glass of wine now and then, consumed at home. Sex is a pretty normal teenage thing to do, and I was having sex at that age, so I'd be a hypocrite to forbid it. I've talked to her about the risks involved and how to protect herself, and offered to take her to get birth control. Smoking weed...I have no experience with that and it's still illegal here, so I'd probably discourage it strongly. Smoking cigarettes...it was difficult for me to quit and I have permanent breathing issues because of it, so I would rather she never starts. Living on her own at 16 would bother me but I think it would bother her too.
Assuming that all of these choices would have to be confronted and discussed. I'm in near-complete agreement with the "priorities' in the above post.
The one on which I might digress is alcohol vs. marijuana; while weed is, after all, a stupefactant, it doesn't pose the risk of intensifying hostility as liquor does. But appeals to "New Puritans" aside, the imposition of Prohibition for the 18-to-21-year age group is still pretty much unenforceable in any college environment; fully agree with a little beer or wine at home to de-mystify the "forbidden fruit syndrome".
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 08-19-2017 at 09:08 PM..
All of the above re cannabis is wrong. ALL of it. What's a "mental birth defect" anyway? Definitely no link to heart disease, nor any link to traffic accidents. Just testing "positive" for marijuana has nothing to do with marijuana intoxication, all it shows is that you have indulged in cannabis use sometime in the last month or more. 100% of those fatal traffic accidents involved a driver over the legal limit for ALCOHOL.
There are millions of people who have used marijuana for decades - 50 or 60 years. Tons of available data, and nothing showing any negative health consequences.
No one has ever caused a train wreck due to marijuana use. A report that an engineer showed "traces" of marijuana byproducts in a urine test did not show current intoxication. The engineer was driving below the speed limit but there was an piece of repair equipment sitting on the tracks where it was not supposed to be. That was the cause of the accident - a train takes a long time to stop when it is going 106 mph.
Alcohol use on the other hand has a long and well-documented history of being at the bottom of many types of accidents, including train wrecks.
I use medical marijuana legally. No jail time. No criminal record. Put that in your pipe and vape it.
So says a disciple of cannabis. They can be as much in denial of the facts about its dangers, as others are about factions of politics or religion.
- Have sex
- Use a gun (really on the same level as have sex, but only if the gun is used in legally permitted ways like at a shooting range or hunting)
- Live on their own (quite possible to happen if the high school in my town closes down which it has been threatening to do for a few years)
- Drink beer (at 16 its pretty much to be expected where I live but of course I'd hope she'd delay for longer)
- Smoke cigarettes (hope she never does)
- Smoke weed (the reason I put weed last is because she has a chance of a genetic predisposition to psychosis inherited from her father whose own psychosis is triggered by weed so for her its potentially more dangerous than for the average person. And of course its illegal in my country and I wouldn't want her getting into trouble)
The only one I would be o.k. with at 16 would be 'use a gun' and that is only if they were responsible with it.
The other things.... no.
Agreed.
Beer - 16 is under legal drinking age, so I'd be pretty upset, but of these things these would be the least of my concerns.
Cigs - 16 is under legal smoking age, and besides, smoking is harmful to everyone around, not just the smoker, so I'd be ticked off for sure.
Weed - Marijuana is an illegal drug regardless of age, so I'd be pretty darn ticked here too.
Live on own - I'd expect this in someone over about 20-22, but 16 I feel is too young barring exceptional circumstances or if they went to college early. Just running away from home would NOT be tolerated one bit.
Sex - That belongs after marriage, and there's no two ways about it. There is no reason people in high school should be canoodling. End of discussion.
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