DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: My dad has been smoking pot since he was 25. He is now 50. I first caught him smoking it outside last Christmas, but he usually smokes in his bathroom. We had huge family fights over it and my mom almost left him, but since it was Christmas we decided to deal with it later and it never arose again. He hasn’t stopped and my sister has her own problems. Do you have any pointers on why pot is bad for you? He thinks it’s natural. He will smoke sometimes and then drive me places, but shouldn’t you wait six hours? It’s just so wrong. I don’t want to grow up like him or my sister. — Jessica
Editor’s Note: Yes, I did say to tell on the sister. I really do have no love for marijuana or lame habits. And the younger you are when you start, the worse the potential effects. As I’ve said before, today’s weed is 10-25 percent stronger than the pot your parents smoked. And your parents were typically ages 18-23 when they started, not 13-19. The adolescent brain is in a huge growth period and weed can bring out negative neurological traits that otherwise would have remained dormant. I’ve seen “just weed” clearly and definitely change young people in a negative way. Yet for many other young people, there are no convincing negative effects, which is where the confusion lies in thinking weed is harmless. If you’re a teen and want to do something good for yourself, put off experimenting with weed until you’re over 21. (Best: don’t smoke it even then.) And if you’re a parent who smokes, quit or cut back to the point that you are 100 percent discreet. Your kids really do need a role model. —Lauren
Comments
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You are right, Lauren, that teens need a role model. However, I really think you (and the panel) should have taken a much stronger stand against drugs, including pot. My stepfather smokes pot and it doesn’t really seem to affect him that much. However, since it doesn’t have much harmful effect on him, he sees no reason not to allow my 16 year old stepsister, his daughter to smoke pot, and since he does it it would be hard to try to stop her anyway. I can see the horrible effect it has on her. If I could, I would just let it be her problem. But I have to share a room with her, so it becomes my problem too. She goes from being hyperactive when she’s really on a high to being zonked out like a zombie when she comes down. Either way, it’s hard to live with and I’m too embarrassed to have friends over which I don’t think is right. Often when she’s high she’ll decide to sponteneously strip off her clothes because she wants to feel “free.” Even though we’re both girls, I still don’t enjoy having to look at her naked body so much, but she just laughs at me when I ask her to put something on and says she has the right to feel “free” in her own room and that I shouldn’t care since were “the same.” She’s gone from being a good student to getting all D’s and F’s and has no interest in doing her schoolwork and also has started cutting school a lot. Nobody can tell me that pot isn’t harmful because I have to live in the same room with proof that it is not.
Kristen
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I’m not saying I recommend it, but our mama’s taught me and my sister to stay away from drugs by being a terrible role model. Her and her boyfriend get high on drugs just about every night and its horrible to be around them. Were like prisoners in our room when their using and hardly leave it except to go to the bathroom. There’s no way we’ll ever use drugs after having to live with this. Its pure Hell. And we never have any money and are always close to getting evicted because she spends everything on drugs including the child support our dad pays.
Selina
