Do you smoke marijuana in front of your minor children?

[BD1978]

I'm not a pot smoker at all, but I favor its legalization and particularly so for medical purposes. That said, parents who smoke weed in front of - or with - their children are not good role models in my book, and frankly I feel the same way about cigarette smoke.

[longneckone]

Originally Posted by convextech

My husband and I occasionally smoked pot when the kids were teenagers, but we hid in our bathroom with the fan on and behind two locked doors.

And of course a teenager could not figure out what you were doing???

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by pegotty

The issues I see with this are primarily related to the influence you have as a role model for your kids. Your kids WILL do what you do. Drugs (and alcohol, for that matter) are proven to have a different affect in children's still-growing brains than on adults. If you read that article (or listen to the podcast) you'll see that not only are children's brains permanently damaged by drug use, they are also much more addiction prone than adults. Using any kind of drug where your child can see you doing it sets a horrible example and puts them at risk for use. Did you know the brain literally doesn't grow as much brain matter in people who used drugs in adolescence?

I don't even want to get into it with you on the rest, I'm going to focus on the parenting part of this. You could not be more wrong if you tried. I mean, I guess "monkey see, monkey do" is a valid argument if no one involved is any smarter than that. But generally...no.

Let's see. My parents both used hard drugs, in fact my Mom was loaded on cocaine and "speed" (meth? I assume? Or something like?) when she was pregnant with me in 1978. I never tried anything but pot and acid as a teenager and left both behind with ease at age 19 when I got pregnant and no longer wanted the stuff in my life.

My Dad was a drunk, a terrifying drunk, who acted crazy and sometimes violent and scared me as a kid. I've never been drunk in my life. I've had tiny sips of alcohol which tasted disgusting to me, and then refused to try more. I'm 36 and have never been drunk, and never intend to, and don't want to.

I could name a dozen other things my parents did that I didn't do, but I think my point is adequately made.

Fast forward to now. My sons are 13 and almost 16. My husband is a disabled vet who uses cannabis for his degenerative disc disease, which lays him low in severe pain otherwise, and it happens to have cured a couple other issues he had, too, including some mental ones. It has also helped him lose 40 lbs in the last year. He does not use the stuff around the kids, primarily because I don't want anything smoked in the house due to odors and the fact that my older son and my cat both have asthma. But the kids know he does it. They know I've done it. They have also seen him drunk, and while he wasn't as bad as my father, he was pretty sloppy.

I have had long, frank discussions with them on the reasons that getting drunk or high is not something they need in their lives. That it is an adult decision. I told them about how I simply stopped caring about school when I used to smoke. My oldest, well, frankly we both agree that for an asthmatic to smoke anything is a bad idea. My youngest, he is brilliant and ambitious. He's got plans for college and life, and he's learning some pretty advanced stuff these days. He understands that using pot might take away all of his drive to succeed, and he does not want that.

Tell you what though. I'd rather either of my kids smoke pot, than use any other mind altering substance, legal or not, except moderate amounts of caffeine.