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ashamed, but because their parents don't think it's such a big deal.
Reports showing increased marijuana use in teenagers show a
corresponding increase in the number of teenagers who believe
marijuana is relatively harmless. One 21-year-old writes, "I've
smoked pot for over seven years. My mother shared it with me at a
very young age."
This woman's case and another of a mother who smoked marijuana
around her young children to calm them down are extreme. Most
responding parents say they conceal their use when their children
are young, smoking outdoors or in the garage, waiting until their
kids are old enough to understand what the drug is for and why they
use it. Some fear anti-drug propaganda promoted in schools might turn
their children against them. Others smoke in front of their children,
but with cautions. One woman says she treats grass in her home much
like wine, advising her children that there's a place and time to
partake.
Ted, the 45-year-old co-chair of a successful Silicon Valley company,
says he introduced the topic to his teenage son: "I told him if he
ever wanted to know, I knew a lot about it. I said I would tell him
what I knew and let him try it. His response was, he didn't want to
hear about it - sort of, 'Thanks, Dad, but no thanks,' " Ted chuckles.
Some pot-smoking parents express concern that young people not ingest
any sort of drug. "Why terrorize your body when you're still young?"
Frederick asks. "I told my son I didn't want him to get high until he
was an adult. I don't think it's a good idea for young people to
escape when nothing has been built up first."
Other parents have told children they would rather they smoke
marijuana than drink alcohol - and some studies show that teens
drink less when they smoke marijuana. One woman says when her teenage
son threw a party at her house she gave him a bag of weed and said no
alcohol allowed. "I would rather have a house full of quiet, laughing,
stoned kids than rowdy, drunk kids breaking things," she says.
Another woman, 40, writes: "When my children were younger I taught
them about the laws against pot smoking and how wrong the laws were.
When my children got older, in their teens, we discussed pot smoking.
I told them I would rather they smoke pot than drink alcohol and that
I wanted them to do it at home. Both my son and daughter smoke pot.
My son is in the Navy and my daughter is going to college."
Outrageous Fortune
Partly because of their reverence for pot and partly because they
believe they use marijuana responsibly, many adult pot smokers feel
they suffer unfair persecution and are outraged at what they consider
the ridiculousness - and, for some, harmfulness - of government
policy. "I think that it is criminal what our government is doing to
hemp smokers," Herbert asserts.
Randy, 35, a self-described "weekend dabbler" with marijuana and
software writer for a Silicon Valley company, asserts, "It's not as
strong as alcohol, it doesn't cause violent or anti-social behavior.
The government has no place legislating it. Hell, I don't even *drink*.
I just have one vice and that's smoking pot."
Outrage increases when users have experienced what they consider
marijuana's medical benefits. Because they use recreationally,
medical benefits are often discovered as a side effect, sort of an
extra-added bonus. In some cases, users have introduced parents and
spouses suffering from cancer and other illnesses to pot, and to
their amusement now find themselves supplying their 80-year-old
mothers with the occasional bag. "My father would die if he found
out," says Rose, who gives marijuana to her bed-bound mother. Rose
also uses marijuana to control her own asthma.
One young woman says she smokes to forestall "very bad menstrual
cramps. It works like a dream. And I think it should be legalized."
Eric Harlow, 61, introduced his wife to marijuana. Suffering from
kidney cancer, she uses marijuana to control the discomfort of
radiation treatment. "She has found relief in the prevention of
vomiting, in increase of appetite and pain reduction. Physicians
can't prescribe marijuana," Harlow says, "and that's a crime."
Getting High Gets No Respect
Marijuana, as currently defined in hemp debates, is confined to
three categories: hemp for industry, marijuana for medicine, and pot
for recreational use - the last of which is considered least useful
in arguments for reform of marijuana laws. Yet some argue that if
the rational, responsible use of marijuana were addressed, the hemp
advocacy movement in general would bound forward.
Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatrist at the Harvard School of Medicine,
is the latest high-status professional to turn pro-pot, much to the
horror of the anti-drug crowd, which prefers to paint the marijuana
reform movement as composed primarily of hippies. Grinspoon, once
a detractor of pot, has become a major proponent of marijuana-law
reform. He is author of the landmark tome _Marihuana Reconsidered_
and has recently co-authored with attorney and Harvard lecturer
James Bakalar _Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine_ and an article
published in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_
pleading for fellow physicians to speak out in favor of medical
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