For our son, who's pretty well grown now at 20, he's always heard factual info on drugs, and we both were honest and told him we'd tried weed in college when he asked as a teenager. He's known since he was old enough to handle it and understand what we were saying (9th grade or so) that there's a lot of propoganda about weed in particular and that it is not the same as other harder drugs. Before that, I didn't mind him getting the usual anti-drug teachings in school because, frankly, I didn't want him dabbling in any illicit substance, even cannabis. When he got old enough to understand and be curious, he knew the rule was that he could try it once he got to college, but he had potential drug testing for athletics in high school and so didn't need or want to mess that up anyway. As it turns out, weed-smoking wasn't his thing, which is quite fine with me.

It's probably worth pointing out here that I'm not actually a practicing cannabis smoker myself. I'm a cannabis advocate. I enjoyed it in college socially, and then had a long, 23-year break until last summer, when we got some to help my older sister, a cancer patient, with her chemo symptoms. I toked with her when she was going through that and enjoyed it again, but it wasn't something I could easily continue doing since I'm trying to succeed in medical school, and frankly the shady business of trying to obtain it illegally is an obstacle for me. My husband is a physician, and he doesn't smoke, either, and would be risking his license if he dabbled in anything illegal. We're informed enough that we know cannabis is far less harmful than alcohol for recreational use, however, and that it badly needs to be made available for medical use everywhere. Anyway, having cannabis in the house or using it when my son was growing up was a non-issue for us. When I found some medical-grade cannabis for my sister last summer, I was candid with our son about what we were doing and simply asked him to keep that information private, and he did.

My son, because he has parents with medical backgrounds, has always known more than average about both mainstream pharmaceuticals and illicit substances. Fortunately, he's smart and sensible and old enough now to know the straight goods on cannabis. Like I said, though, when he was younger, the propaganda didn't bother me too much. Kids aren't exactly discerning creatures when they're young and can't understand the subtleties of differences among substances like they can when they're older. I can definitely say that if we had been active cannabis smokers when he was growing up, we'd have kept that secret from him.