Medicinal Marijuana and Kids’ Ideas

This issue is so packed for me I’m just going to start right in. No pretty ledes.

I was a pot head for a long time and I couldn’t stop and I got into recovery and finally stopped and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and my life has been a thousand times better since I quit.

I never abused alcohol. Never. Alcohol doesn’t do it for me, but weed is my perfect chemical cocktail. It let me see life as safe, and interesting, and exciting. I was always either high, dying to get high, or foggy-mindedly hung-over from it. I completely understand that most people aren’t addicted to pot: that most people can use it recreationally. I also know that pot is less debilitating than alcohol, opioids, heroin, or crack. Yet, it served perfectly to fuck me up but good and lose lots of years I could have spent developing emotionally and creatively. (More on that in another story.)

There are other adults like me out there, and that’s okay: I’m not overly concerned about them.

What’s getting me now is what kids are hearing in the big, public conversation about legalizing recreational use and the pros of medicinal use.

Not that I’m against legalizing marijuana, I’m not. In fact, I’m totally for decriminalizing all drugs (I don’t know how that could be enacted, but I’d love to see tons less criminal activity and all that penal, policing, and judicial money g0ing into recovery and mental health services. But that’s a whole other story.)

I’m also not against the use of weed for medicinal purposes. I’m for it.

So, my big worry about the whole public conversation around all this is that kids are getting a crazy wrong idea about smoking dope.

And being idiotic by definition, some young kids are hearing hearing hearing about how fantastic pot is. It’s medicinal! And what they’re thinking is: Oh My God: pot isn’t only not bad for you, it’s so good for you! It’s medicinal!

But, it just isn’t true that getting high when you’re 15 is good for you, no matter how you slice it.

And, if you have the potential to be an addict/alcoholic…it wouldn’t matter even if it was good for you. Believe me, the polyphenols in red wine aren’t going to help an alcoholic. Addiction doesn’t always just spring up, fully formed. It can develop, in many people, as using and time passes. Young brains are still developing until they’re in their early 20s. And one of the predictors of who is likely to develop alcoholism/addiction (it’s the same disease), is early use.

So, what can we do to change the conversation they’re hearing?

Anything, anybody?