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ManOwner -> RE: MORE ADVICE SOUGHT,..Medical Marijuanna in a home w/kids (4/17/2005 11:12:19 PM)
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I'm not a parent, but one of my mottos is "The truth will set you free." I think that being frank about drugs is far better than using scare tactics or being sanctimonious. If your kids are sophisticated enough, I would try to explain to them how the classifications of drugs are government-made. We have the legal, over the counter drugs: alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, NyQuil, etc. Then we have everything else. Some drugs in the "everything else" category are legal when a doctor prescribes them. Marijuana is one of those.
Then you can try to educate them about the war on drugs. For various political reasons, certain drugs are considered most evil. We place them under the popular title "illegal drugs." These include marijuana, cocaine, heroin, crack, ecstasy, speed, and LSD. The D.A.R.E. types will talk to you about illegal drugs in black and white terms. Legal drugs are all more or less tolerable when you use them responsibly (even tobacco use won't bring about the end of days). Illegal drugs are simply all bad.
But it's not that simple, boys and girls. Marijuana is a drug that can be used at least as responsibly as alcohol, and it is far less dangerous to the user and the people around him. As long as alcohol and cigarettes are legal, none of the arguments against marijuana use make any sense. However, just as it is illegal to use alcohol when you're under 21, it is illegal to use marijuana without a prescription - at any age. Therefore, don't do either of those things until such time as the law changes.
It might help you to look at it this way, faithfulasst. Don't think about marijuana as some kind of supernatural force of evil. Think of it as just another prescription drug, like morphine or Viagra. Both are for sale on the street, but both are considered perfectly legitimate for use (even in a house with children) when a doctor prescribes them.
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