Cannabis and Parenting
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” -Nelson Mandela
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” -Maya Angelou
Why is it so difficult for human beings, especially for adults and parents, to change their minds or attitudes on a subject? In our modern age of technology, with unlimited and free access to news and research on any subject at any time, why do we still feel so confused? Perhaps it’s the constant presence of our screens (phones, tablets and computers), that inundate us with information on a constant basis. Has it become harder than ever to really know what is right and wrong?
Each time we find a diet or a workout routine that we think is healthy and amazing, more information comes along to tell us that maybe we are wrong. Perhaps the diet that helps us lose weight isn’t actually healthy for the long term, and maybe that new miracle workout is actually bad for your joints and muscles. It becomes so confusing and frustrating, that eventually most people eventually stop paying attention to information and just decide to tune out. That is completely understandable, and we all do it with certain subjects, but does “tuning out” to new information actually hamper our efforts to grow and mature? Without new information, and the interest in learning new things, does it become impossible to ever grow as a person.
For anyone that lived through the 1990’s and early 2000’s, old diet staples like butter, eggs and whole milk were villainized as negative and unhealthy foods, only to be shown years later to be the exact opposite. People spent years and years of trying hard to avoid fat and cholesterol, only to be told that in fact it was mostly all wrong! All of the recent research and science has shown that refined sugars and simple carbohydrates are much more dangerous than fat or cholesterol (at least from natural foods like eggs or dairy), and many of our grocery and dining choices in years past were incorrect. How did intelligent people get duped into thinking treats like fat-free snack-well cookies, or fat-free Lay’s potato chips were actually good for us, even though they were loaded with sugar, preservatives, and all sorts of weird chemicals, the least of which caused some very unsavory side effects….(https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/01/cspi_olestra.html)?
The only clear answer that makes sense, is that human beings can often be wrong and make mistakes. It is what we do next that defines how we live. Do we give up and tune out? Do we get stagnant and agree to never change our minds?.........Or………Do we forge ahead and search out new information in the effort to live a happier and healthier life. This journey to learn and grow is often the thing that makes us feel alive and human. In the age of social media, where there are supposed experts on every subject at every turn, it has become critically important to filter our information and balance it with our pre- existing biases. At least understand where we went wrong in the first place. What fostered our biases and pre-disposed feelings? Was it our parents and what they taught us? The era and time in which we grew up? What city or area we were raised in? Likely it ends up being a combination of all of these factors, but we cannot give up on the search to lean and improve.
This search for accurate, new, and meaningful information has been the cornerstone of the cannabis legalization push across our country. What started in 1996 in California with medical cannabis becoming legal for the first time, has now spread across all parts of the county. The hope is that more and more of us start getting it right, and not fall victim to just comfortably living with our old incorrect prejudices. Cannabis legalization, both for medical and adult recreational use, has not been 100% perfect, but over 20 years, the programs have been wildly successful on many different levels. We have real data from the last decade showing the positive benefits of cannabis, so now it is up to us to undo the decades of incorrect mythology that we grew up with.
For the majority of the last 50 years, really dating back to 1971 when Richard Nixon declared his “war on all drugs,” parents have spent vast amounts of time, energy, money and resources to keep drugs away from their children. Things only got more intense and fearful in the 1980s, when another conservative President over 70 years old, Ronald Raegan, amplified Nixon’s earlier sentiments to fight all drug use at any cost. His wife Nancy (the First Lady) spearheaded the national “Just Say No” ad campaign for all kids, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed in 1986. Battle lines had been drawn, and re-cemented in the ground, and cigarettes, alcohol and prescription pills were all completely OK, and EVERYTHING else was labeled and declared pure evil. Looking back, these political sentiments and movements were not created without any good intentions. The politicians, while older and more conservative than most, wanted to try and keep children safe and avoid having them fall into dangerous and addictive habits. All parents can appreciate this effort, but as history has shown, complicated problems call for specific and surgical solutions; not ambiguous catch-all policies that do not distinguish any degrees of bad or good. No one ever thought about separating different drugs into different classes based on risk and benefit factors, nor did any politicians take a harder look at the risks and downsides of glamorizing alcohol and cigarettes. Throughout the 1980’s kids and parents everywhere were lambasted with anti-drug propaganda, the “just say no” campaigns, and non-stop visual imagery of what any drug can do to your brain (see below),
All the while, at the same time, kids were freely watching the Winston Cup sponsored Nascar Racing Circuit, dressing up as Joe Camel for Halloween and seeing our favorite celebrities drinking nothing but beer!
While the amount of media advertising for cigarettes and tobacco has dissipated over the last 20 years, the glorification and normalizing of alcohol has not changed. Somehow it is still completely acceptable for Coors Light to be the Official beer of “drinking on the shower” in 2020 (https://www.ispot.tv/ad/oyyM/coors-light-the-official-beer-of-drinking-in-the-shower-song-by-gipsy-kings), but many parents and adults still feel socially awkward and uncomfortable about cannabis.
History has also shown us the perils of prescription pain and anxiety pills (that were always there, just never openly discussed. Wouldn’t the world be a better place today with people like Tom Petty, Prince, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Chris Cornell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Juice WRLD, and many more still alive, instead of dead from opioid pill overdoses? Prescription pills for pain, anxiety and sleep were always quietly condoned and socially accepted up until the opioid pain pill epidemic really came to light in the last decade. Now we can all agree that for over 20 years doctors prescribed awful pills that were highly addictive and lethal, and never even considered that Cannabis could be a much healthier and safer alternative. There is a reason that so many retired NFL football players are now invested and involved in cannabis, since they were all addicted to opioid pain pills and saw firsthand their destructive nature. There is information out there showing the horrible side effects and addictive nature of these prescription medications, but we need to listen.
So…what does all this mean for modern day parents? The stresses and challenges of being a parent in 2020 are all still there (even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit), so what are sensible and prudent parents to do?
First, we have to make a positive choice to slowly change our attitudes and minds on cannabis and start the process of undoing decades of false mythology that portrayed cannabis as an evil “gateway” drug that would ruin lives. There is now over 20 years of scientific data related to medical cannabis and going on 5 years of data from adult recreational use, that has shown that cannabis is far safer and healthier than we were shown during all of these anti-drug campaigns.
In a recent article in Parent’s Magazine (http://maristpoll.marist.edu/yahoo-newsmarist-poll/#sthash.IeBbmwpK.dpbs),a poll of 1,000 U.S. adults found that using cannabis has become surprisingly acceptable, particularly in families in which parents themselves are users. Fifty-four (54%) percent of Americans who use cannabis are parents, and 30 percent are parents with children younger than 18. Compared to similar surveys conducted in 2005 and 1995, the percentages of parents and adults that admit to cannabis use, and/or condone it as socially acceptable, has gone up significantly (by a factor of 8)!
In a 2018 investigative article conducted by the NY Daily News (https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/marijuana-better-parent-article-1.3858657), many parents actually thought that using cannabis made them better parents. Increased levels of patience and creativity, along with feeling relaxed and more calm were the most common benefits reported by the parents who used cannabis. Being ”engaged “with our families and kids has become a common talking point for all parents over the last few years, as there are now constant distractions from our phones and the outside world. Cannabis can be a wonderful aid with this search for feeling engaged with our children. It is not at all about feeling “stoned”, it is just a getting little help to turn down the anxiety and stress in our lives, so that we can turn up the focus and happiness we use to interact with our kids.
We have to break through the false mythology that alcohol is fine, and cannabis is evil. Once we start that journey, a happier and healthier life is waiting!
Here are some helpful tips for parents that want to use cannabis as an alternative to alcohol or prescription anxiety or sleep medication….
Methods of Using Cannabis:
For active parents, taking edibles and using a vape (disposable or rechargeble) seem to be the safest and most conspicuopus ways to use cannabis near your kids. While smoking cannabis flower is still the preferred method for many users, at Healthy Swap we want to always suggest the healthiest ways to intake, and smoking cannabis looks the same as smoking cigarettes to a child. Edibles and vapes offer parents a very simple way to get the desired level of relaxation and happyness, without your kids having to be exposed to any smoking or smoking related gear (no lighters, pipes, smoke smell, etc…)
Dosing and Timing:
With Edibles, it is very importnt to start slow with low doses (usually 5mg of THC to start with), especially if you are going to take them while you spend time with your kids. The only possible negaitive experience you can have is taking too high a dose of THC and then feeling like you are unable to fully parent. Be careful with edibles, and make sure you don’t over use. It is also important to understand how long the products take to kick in (the onset) and how long they last. Healthy Swap can help you answer questions, or your local dispensary or bud-tender can help offer advice. Typically we recommend waiting until all the kids go to bed before you start, to make sure you can handle the dose. Then once you have a better feel and understanding of how different levels orf THC make you feel, you will know what dose to use when your kids are still awake.
Packaging and Storage:
PLEASE make sure you have a safe place to store your cannabis. What makes edibles and vapes so easy to use for adults, is also the biggest negative drawback. If cannabis priducts are left unattended your kids could esily use them without knowing what they are. Unfortaunetly cannabis compaines make edibles into things that adults find appetizing: chocolates, gummies, candies, fruity drinks, etc…ALL things that kids would also find appetizing and desireable. IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL that all edibles and vapes are keps away from kids, no different that how you would store a perscription pain medicine or alcohol. We at Healthy Swap recommend a medication lockbox, or sometype of container that is kept completely separate from your children. Many of the edibles come in really nice child-proof packaging, but if the bags are left open, it can be a disaster and dangerous. This is the fundamental difference between cannabis and alcohol. For as damaging and dangerous as alcohol can be, you can’t take a single pill or gummie that has the equivelent of 6 beers or a bottle of wine. Cannabis edibles MUST be taken and stored with responsibility. As long as you do that (no different than if you decide to have a firearm in the house), you will be fine. Admitting you are a parent that needs or wants to use cannabis is about being more responsible and owning the situation. NEVER leave edibles or vapes where kids can easily get to them.
4. How to Discuss Cannabis with Your Children
This is completely up to each individual family, as there is no right or wrong answer. Just like every family picks different times and different ages to speak to their kids about social issues, sex, politics, violence, etc…every family needs to figure out their own timeline for how to discuss cannabis. Eeach parnet needs to decide if their cannabis use is better left as a secret, or something that is openly discussed. For parents that do want to discuss it with their kids, there is a wonderful book written for Children that can be a helpful resource: https://www.grandmas420garden.com/
We also would love to hear from you! Please send us your thoughts on this topic, as every parent surely has questions and would gain comfort from further discussion and dialogue. And good luck! These are certainly very tough times for all parents.
Sincerely,
Your Friends at Healthy Swap