Parents who grow

[liberiamom]

I imagine there are a number of ways to address it; I would love to hear other people's experiences with this. A some of you know, my husband and I plan to adopt a few kids and we both smoke and would like to continue. I have depressive illness and use marijuana to relieve that. I have tried many other pharmecuetical remedies, but they have numerous side effects. The worst side effect I get from smoking is the munchies.

I also understand that what I do is illegal. I believe the laws against the use of marijuana are unfair. BTW, I have smoked pot with police officers- but that's another story. Prohibition of this sort harms people - can you imagine if alcohol or nicotine possession was a criminal offense? I'm not going to go into the talking points here. Suffice it to say, a harmful law should not be enabled to exist.

I have smoked pot for 37 years, though I took a nine year break. I do not abuse marijuana. I do not drink alcohol; I do not smoke cigarettes - I have seen first hand the negative effects of those drugs. My husband likes his Sam Adams. We watch the HGTV network. We are asleep by 11pm every night. We are middle-aged people who smoke pot instead of swig Jack Daniels. We want to grow enough so we do not have to have anymore dealings with drug dealers, because those people don't just deal weed and that puts myself or my husband in harm's way.

I have had an indoor garden for years now, in a grow room in the basement, where I grow tomatoes and basil and dill and eggplant andpeppers (I have an incredible variety of hot pepper seeds if anyone want to swap) and swiss chard,...it goes on and on, so a couple cannabis plants aren't going to stand out- they are just another herb. When it warms up here in New England, I put my flowers and vegetables out - I hope to have a greenhouse within the next few years.

We won't smoke in front of the children, and we will use our vaporizer in the privacy of our bedroom, which will have a lock.

When the children are old enough, or should it ever just come up, there is a book I would share with them called "It's Just a Plant." I plan tell them that once they are adults, they can make their own choices about all drugs, including alcohol, but before that they are in my care, and must not use those drugs. I am really hoping that by the time the kids are old enough to want to smoke, it will be decriminalized. I don't know for certain how old our kids will be, but they will be between 5 and 10 years old. So our approach will be contingent on that-

I am sure that I will smoke less when I have kids, because I simply won't have a moment to myself until the very end of the day. But at the end of the day, I intend to have my smoke break. Will that be deceptive- yes it will be, and how I wish that my use of marijuana was not a moral issue, just like my friend's fondness for red wine? I think parents have adult issues that the children do not need to know everything about. I'm an old hippy inside. How bad is that?

Any parents out there who can share their wisdom on how to be a "growing" parent?

[VOYAGER]

Sounds like you have covered everything. The only thing i'd be worried about is when my kids get to the grade levels where they are too young to know, but still have drug awareness days where they show pics and stuff of drugs and ask if they have ever seen things like this( rolled joint, bag of grass, etc...) before and don't know how to answer. (hopefully i wont ever get caught by the kids, but shit happens, so i guess only time will tell. Also why wait till the end of the day? I enjoy sneaking off to the bathroom taking a toke and sitting down with my kids and play as if i was a peer to them, its a nice relaxed enjoyable time, almost like a fountain of youth in a bowl. As far as a moral issue there are a lot more common people that do more things wrong in the eye of the lord than a herb user. I have yet to find anywhere in the bible where it says "thou shall not smoketh the pot", but i can spot many things in todays society that are purely against the rules that i live by. Oh well i could probably ramble about all kinds of things as i get further off the point. To simply answer your concerns, i think you have it covered already. Just be smart about it.

[CCIE]

Are you planning to adopt through a private agency or from the state care system?

Private adoption experiences vary so I can't speak about those, but the state will assign a social worker who will check on you. That person getting wind of your grow would be bad in ways we can both imagine, and I fear that the danger of discovery is higher than you've estimated. I don't want to sound discouraging - adopting is awesome! I have experience with the process by proxy after watching a relative go through it, and analyzing the situation makes me worry that the logistics of your grow might need to be altered if you are adopting kids out of state custody:

The problem is the fact that you will not be able to hide what you are doing from the kids for long if it takes place in the house or yard. I know you intend to educate them, but 5-10 year olds are unpredictable and all it takes is one mention or hint of MJ in a checkup interview to start a firestorm.
If a kid catches you smoking/harvesting/etc, you could:

1. Act as though it's not something significant. "It's my medicine, hon." "Oh, ok."
This runs the risk that the kid will innocently blurt it to the caseworker, babysitter, etc. Caseworkers are trained to keep their antennae up for things like this.

2. Make the kid aware that, while not bad, it's something that needs not to be discussed publically (follow up with the book and explanation)
If the caseworker drops by on the day you confiscated the kid's favorite action figure, he might tell your 'secret' to spite you. Even the nicest kids have their 'moments,' and they don't grasp legal consequences.

3. Explicitly explain the legal consequences. Warn the kid that if he tells about what he sees, the government will take him away.
Possibly effective, but EVIL!! :vader1:

Smoking discreetly shouldn't be much of a problem, but I truly suggest that you move the grow op somewhere away from the house. If you sit on a large plot of land, a locked, insulated shed in a corner of the property might work, as might the house of a trusted friend who wouldn't mind making it a tandem effort. In time (years), when caseworker oversight has lessened and you've grown into a family it'll be far less of an issue, but for now, healthy paranoia!

[Storm Crow]

Darlin', you gotta move to California! The laws around here are halfway sane! I'm in rural northern Cali and it is a good place to raise kids! My county is starting a FREE after-school day care for up to 8th grade in ALL of the schools (2 to 6 pm)! A well lit skateboard park was just put in about a half mile from the school. Crime is low, rent is reasonable (for California, anyway) and there are few sirens in the night. I do hear the occational gun shot- usually the cattle rancher down the road after a coyote'! And sunrise over the snow covered mountain can't be touched!-- The move would solve your problem! As a legal medical user, you would have nothing to hide from the children. And I'd love to have you as a neighbor!:D

I didn't grow when my kids were little, but I did smoke in front of them. My husband also smokes tobacco. We didn't treat it as anything mysterious or forbidden. We did explain that smoking was a grown-up thing and when they were 18, if they wanted to they could. I was lucky with the kids I got, both were smart enough to understand explainations. They knew that their lungs had to be all grown up or the smoke would really hurt their lungs. They knew that there were family things that we didn't talk about outside the family or close friends. Like we didn't discuss how one of my sons would..... (well, we just won't discuss it- too embarassing, now that he's grown! lol) or that Mom and Dad smoke cigarettes (husband rolled his own, so no big difference there) or that Grandma sometimes drank too much and got really silly. It was just family stuff. The whole thing was low key. The furtiveness, and the dishonesty of hiding medical use seems somehow absurd to me when there are 11 states where you could be at least semi-legal. - Granny

[kush07]

I was 13 years old. I went down to the basement for something, saw a bright light from behind this black tarp, it was way up on this hill behind the hot water heater and everything. I didn't have a clue what it was so I went up to investigate. I pulled back the tarp and it was like, "HAWWWW!" with bright lights and foil and seeing live cannabis plants for the time and the smell it was like a spirtual experience. Three plants long and scraggly with pop corn buds, I remember back then you know the symbol for Cannabis is the leaf so I thought thats what you smoked to get high, I remember getting a few of the dead leaves off the bottom of the room and trying to roll a joint with present tissue paper! lol good times!

[kush07]

Sounds like your making all the right decisions, God bless ya!

[Dutch Pimp]

..after we finish covering this subject..AthruZ...can we hear about.. "that's another story"...you know...about smoking with fuzz...???...

..I'm too stoned for the other thing now..

[partyguy420]

...Also why wait till the end of the day? I enjoy sneaking off to the bathroom taking a toke and sitting down with my kids and play as if i was a peer to them, its a nice relaxed enjoyable time, almost like a fountain of youth in a bowl....

see... as much as i in joy smoking... and as much as i think smoking a joint after a hard day of work... or sitting in the bar with a few buddies passing around a joint... i do not agree with sneaking off to smoke a joint, and then coming out and playing with you kids... if you went and asked my dad one of the to tell you some of the memories about me and him... he will either not be able to rember one... or he will tell you one, that everyone in my family talks about... theres not one memory, that he has of just me and him, that no one else knows...and also... he has had to ask me for the past 3 or 4 years when my birth day was...(im his first born child... by 2 years there should be at least one good memory of us... and he should be able to rember what day i was born because... i know it was my moms happiest day of her life... and i think it was one of his happiest days for him self to)

anyways... to the girl who planes to adopt a child...well... my mom had a few mis-cariges before i was born, and was planing on just adopoting, and then she relised that she couldnt do that because the state(i think the welfare office) has to do random home viseits so im not sure if growing right away is going to be such a great idea... and thats the whole reason why my parents didnt ever adopt a child....

just my 2 cents:twocents:

[stinkyattic]

It's an interesting question. I think you should consider moving somewhere where the laws are less draconian. MA is one of the harshest. Look at VT if you want to stay in NE; the laws are still there but in general the state is more progressive and they seem to care more about using their small number of officers to address violent crime. Well, and write speeding tickets to skiers who are never going to be able to get time off work to drive all the way up from Jersey to fight them, lol!
The problem with growing with kids is the trust/honesty/secrecy thing. You can be open with them, but you know how kids are, trying to be all 'cool' in school... it's only a matter of time before the cool mom comes up. Again, better to grow within the law so they're like, yeah, so what? It's legal.
Anyhoo.... just my 2 cents.
Liberiamom, I still think we should chill sometime!

[stinkyattic]

Oh hey, how can I get in touch with you? Do you actually have koi? I used to breed fighting fish [bettas] and just for hahas I put some in my parents' koi pond to eat mosquito larvae... they got fat and sassy and the skeeters disappeared completely! You should try it.

[liberiamom]

I REALLY wish we could move to someplace where this wasn't such an issue, but my husband has his own business, so that's not practical at this point in our lives. We could possibly do New Hampshire, but Vermont would take us too far away from his client base.
We fortunately have already had the complete homestudy and are approved :) by the state (I wasn't growing anything then) and we will have a few post placement meetings next year, but our social worker is wonderful -we have still to be approved by the govt and be fingerprinted, but once that is done, it is an independant adoption...no other agency is involved... and by that time I hope to have the harvest complete for the time being. I only plan to grow a few plants at a time. It's just for me and dear husband.
I intend to take a very low key approach- I make tea out of chamomile that I grow in my garden, after all. It is medicine to me- I could survive without it, but there are many people who can't, and that seriously pisses me off that they can't...! Another time.

I will probably be mulling this over a lot and really appreciate everyone's candid advice.

Stinky, after next Tues school will be out, and I'd love to hang (I'm not dry anymore so I feel like socializing!) Let me know how to reach you or ask kindprincess for my contact info.

Off to work, hi ho hi ho

[liberiamom]

see... as much as i in joy smoking... and as much as i think smoking a joint after a hard day of work... or sitting in the bar with a few buddies passing around a joint... i do not agree with sneaking off to smoke a joint, and then coming out and playing with you kids... if you went and asked my dad one of the to tell you some of the memories about me and him... he will either not be able to rember one... or he will tell you one, that everyone in my family talks about... theres not one memory, that he has of just me and him, that no one else knows...and also... he has had to ask me for the past 3 or 4 years when my birth day was...(im his first born child... by 2 years there should be at least one good memory of us... and he should be able to rember what day i was born because... i know it was my moms happiest day of her life... and i think it was one of his happiest days for him self to)

anyways... to the girl who planes to adopt a child...well... my mom had a few mis-cariges before i was born, and was planing on just adopoting, and then she relised that she couldnt do that because the state(i think the welfare office) has to do random home viseits so im not sure if growing right away is going to be such a great idea... and thats the whole reason why my parents didnt ever adopt a child....

just my 2 cents:twocents:

Thanks honey, and you are absolutely right about the memories- my mom was drunk for my childhood. But I don't really smoke like that- I never smoke so much that I can' t remember things- I just have a few hits and get a light buzz. People react differently to different drugs, you know. I cannot drink at all anymore because I drank the same way my mom did but many people can easily have one glass of wine and feel fine and not need more. I believe it is the same way with weed. I don't ever get really wrecked.

[420izzle]

I am the father of two wonderful children - 5 and 9 years of age. They are the best thing in my life. I have utilized MJ for 17 years for its recreation qualities and medicinal (A.D.D.). I find the two worlds conflict at times, mainly because of the evil prohibition and related issues, but for the most part, my family life and my personal choice co-exist in harmony. I do not partake in front of them. I do not leave stuff around for anybody to see. I do not want them partaking while growing. I do not think that will really happen, but for example - my wife doesn't and never has tried MJ. I do not let it run my life like I see tobacco and alcohol do to people. I do let my kids run my life. I do spend a lot of time with my kids. I do respect them I do live a simple and productive life and teach them to do the same - finding happiness and love are some of our goals. I do have some guilt over this issue and will discuss all this with them and keep it real and honest, but only when they are ready. I do want what is best for me and my family. I do the right things. I do grow and it is not accessible for my kids at this time (it would involve hauling a ladder to the attic access). I do plan on installing a lock on that door soon. I do love my children. I do what is best for them.

I believe you will too!

I have a friend who adopted a young girl from Khazikstan. Her and her partner are great parents and both ladies love to burn. They have had no issues with agencies the like.

Take care.
Peace and love.

[partyguy420]

Thanks honey, and you are absolutely right about the memories- my mom was drunk for my childhood. But I don't really smoke like that- I never smoke so much that I can' t remember things- I just have a few hits and get a light buzz. People react differently to different drugs, you know. I cannot drink at all anymore because I drank the same way my mom did but many people can easily have one glass of wine and feel fine and not need more. I believe it is the same way with weed. I don't ever get really wrecked.

as long as your not getting so stonded... that you laff your ass off when they fall off the bed and crach their foreheads open... i think you should be fine....+

my mom was a stoner.... but we still have the good times... and bad times we have shared....

you know... as much as that first post i wrote made me sound anti marijuana.... i love weed... but i think that if your so stoned that your kid cracks his forehead open.... and you just stand their and laff... and then you r kid has to have a few stiches put in is head... then im anti marijuana...

[420izzle]

I just want to add...
It is all about the children - truly. I also grew up with alcoholic people and partying and abuse. I know the pain that goes along with that lifestyle. I know the suffering my mother went through during her journey as a single mother and I lived it with her. Would there be less suffering in adult life if all children were given all that they deserve in love, understanding, care, time, compassion? ...perhaps.
I think everybody out there with the responsibility of parenthood needs to give all they can for the children. Our children deserve the innocent nature they were given, and who are we to take that away!
I worry about all kids and the cruel world that they must grow up in. We owe it to them to give them a safe and sane life.
Be careful with grows and the like y'all! Uncle Sam wants to get you for child endangerment. And that might just be well deserved in some cases.
Take care.
My $4.20 worth.

[liberiamom]

I think once we bring the kids home from Africa, there will be bigger fish to fry than the "partaking,", since they won't see that. I am more concerned about their adjustment in terms of post-traumatic stress, RAD, etc. I expect they may need to work with a therapist to sort things out. Some of these kids watched their parents get gunned down in the war, and have been living in first a refugee camp where they ran around mostly undressed and unsupervised, not to mention hungry! Then they have spent the past year in a 3 bedroom house with 50+ other kids, sleeping on the floor on sheets and living on rice. I intend to spend most of my time showering them with love and attention- for once it won't be all about little me, and that is something I really look forward to. If it ever came down to a choice between smoking or being a mom, I would certainly give up smoking- I went for many years without it, so that's not out of the realm of possibility. But I would prefer to make it a private activity between my husband and I behind closed doors-
or maybe in the hot tub after the little ones go to bed....;)

[stinkyattic]

But I would prefer to make it a private activity ........ maybe in the hot tub after the little ones go to bed....;)
Good point! Grownup time! Boring grownup things like paying bills and doing taxes!!!! Now if only all you had to worry about was them going to school and bragging 'hey, my Mom GRADES PAPERS IN HER ATTIC!!!!'

[420izzle]

I am more concerned about their adjustment in terms of post-traumatic stress, RAD, etc. I expect they may need to work with a therapist to sort things out. Some of these kids watched their parents get gunned down in the war, and have been living in first a refugee camp where they ran around mostly undressed and unsupervised, not to mention hungry! Then they have spent the past year in a 3 bedroom house with 50+ other kids, sleeping on the floor on sheets and living on rice. I intend to spend most of my time showering them with love and attention- for once it won't be all about little me, and that is something I really look forward to.



I can't imagine the horrors these kids have had to deal with. I think this is GREAT that you and your husband are adopting and if more of us could help children from around the world it would be a better one.

[liberiamom]

It's so funny how life is. First we tried to have kids, finally via all sorts of interventions etc which is really not fun, with limited success; then we decided to try adopting from China, but a bout with cancer nixed that- yu have to be free of cancer for five years before the Chinese gov will allow it- another stupid rule-; and then we met some people who had just opened an orphanage in Liberia. Wherever doors closed, we turned until we found another one open. To adopt from the US wasn't an option for a variety of insummountable reasons, so we kept trying international options, and found that Liberia has the highest age allowances- you can't adopt from many countries if you are over 45! So here we are working on bringing our kids home from Africa next year. It's too exciting to even think about!

[pot_head_sam]

First off...congratulations! Second...my husband and I sound a lot like you guys, but we already have a child. She is 9 and I have the view that marijuana is natural and when she is old enough to understand, I will explain the legal issues, the medical issues, and why she should always wait because it could stunt growth, etc. (the same speech for alcohol and cigs). I would much rather my child come home and tell me she is smoking weed than tell me she likes to drink!

I do want to say that smoking and playing with her is much better. I find myself wanting to read more books with her, or play house etc because I am "on her level" somewhat more. But let me tell you, if you are high, and your child falls or hurts themselves in any way....buzz is gone! Immediately you jump into parent mode. It is not like alcohol, where you cannot control yourself. Just think about driving...when intoxicated it is very very dangerous, but when high (from weed) you are extremely cautious. Parenting is kinda like that. Also, we do not smoke around her...or leave anything to find. To us, it's like sex...we don't want her to find us doing the deed. I don't leave sexual toys lying around for her to find, just like I don't leave papers, pipes etc. lying around.

Now as far as growing....we also only grow for ourselves. We feel we would risk getting caught more by buying it from dealers. Granted if we are caught growing, the penalties are much worse that buying, the chance of getting caught is less (unless you tell people, sell etc.)

I hope this long rant has helped. Just remember, when it comes to your children, use your own judgement. If you don't think you should, then don't.

[liberiamom]

You words really help- it makes me feel like I am not alone, when I hear someone who has been through childrearing successfully as a smoking and growing parent. You have the same attitude that I do, and your child has not suffered. I have had scary things happen while I am high, and you are right- instant sobriety! I always have strong maternal responses whenever my husband or my pets or even my students have issues, whether emotional or physical - I am a kind of take charge person anyway!

I imagine it would be fun to play with my kids if I had a little buzz. I love cuddling when I smoke- and these kids are going to need a lot of cuddling!
I can't wait-

I am so ready for this next chapter in my life. It is so mystical- who will these children be who are destined for us? :upsidedow

[Storm Crow]

They will be scared and scarred. It will take a while for them to trust and let go of fear. There will be nightmares and simple joys. Take things slowly, at least, at first. They are not going to come running to you shouting "Mommy, Mommy!", gaining their love and trust will take time. But you know this already. You are doing a good and noble thing saving these kids! Blessings on you, dear.- Granny:stoned: