Friday, February 25, 2011

How To Talk With Your Kids About Medical Marijuana


How To Talk With Your Kids About Medical Marijuana
Experts Encourage Honesty, Abstinence and Safety 
By Charmie Gholson

This article originally posted in The Midwest Cultivator January 2011 Issue


“I will not use scare tactics to deter you. Instead, having spent the past 25 years researching drug use, abuse and policy, I will tell you a little about what I have learned, hoping this will let you to make wise choices. My only concern is your health and safety.”
--Marsha Rosenbaum, director emerita of the San Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance and widely published expert on drug abuse, in a letter addressed to her son titled, “A Mothers Advice about Drugs.”

Now that medical marijuana is legal in Michigan, how can parents talk to their kids about the use of cannabis? How can parents who want to move away from the zero-tolerance orthodoxy of current U.S. drug control policy educate their children?

Rosenbaum, who was the principal investigator on National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded studies of heroin addiction, methadone maintenance treatment, MDMA (Ecstasy), cocaine, and drug use during pregnancy for 18 years, says today’s teenagers already a great deal about marijuana through direct experience and information from family, friends and the media.

“Half of American teenagers try marijuana anyway, and once they learn the dire warnings are not true, they begin to mistrust everything about drugs adults tell them,” she writes in a piece published on changetheclimate.org. “And why shouldn't they? Why should they listen at all if they can't believe what we tell them?
Our first priority ought to be gaining the trust of young people. We ought to offer a scientifically grounded education that allows them to learn all they can about drugs, alcohol and any other substance(s) they ingest.”

Here are some of Rosenbaums suggestions for talking to your teen: