Casual Drug Use

*** WARNING ***

Children, ages spanning elementary to collage, consider experimental drugs as absolutely acceptable. The problem? The game has changed. When I was growing up, THC levels in marijuana, weed, grass, devils lettuce, was about 5% to 15%. Now? It’s a frightening 12% to 30% and higher. There is a pure THC product called dabs. All it takes is a dab, literally. This is hallucinogenic amounts of THC! This is not your mother’s pot!  That’s just the beginning. Anything and every drug can be laced with dangerous chemicals causing hallucinations and ultimately death by suicide or vital organ failure. Or, the possibility of DUI’s that take many lives.

The only true prevention is resilience training. Look that word up. Study it. Evaluate your life to see if you possess it. If you’re a parent, are you teaching it to your children? Government programs can help though school systems and other means but home should be the primary delivery system. Home. Home. Home.

What is so rarely understood by those who are experimenting and probably by tolerant parents as well is any drug use is a sign of distress. Drugs create a temporary escape Hatch. If life is grand, why escape? You don’t. Drugs are always a slow form of suicide – always. Our children are suffering – alone. We are built to bond. When we don’t have healthy relationships, we have destructive relationships that often evolve around our drug of choice. No one wants to feel alone.

Today, the Utah Legislature will be voting two medical marijuana bills. It may surprise you that I’m in favor of whole plant access. It may surprise you that I’m not in favor of waiting for our inept federal government, FDA, to come to the table. What I am in favor of is the responsible release on our obviously fragile public and even more fragile and vulnerable younger population. There’s only one bill that shows that kind of restraint, SB89. The debate is fierce as it should be. I’m greatly concerned at the misinformation spread. What neither bill has and needs is a robust prevention component attached.

Let’s hope we get this at least partially right. Yes, we need whole plant access but if you break the dam all at once, those down stream will be drowned. SB89 is a more responsible approach.

What do we do? I’m not the queen on the hill devoid of life’s greatest trials lecturing on the merits of resilience and good parenting. I’ve struggled, my kids have struggled. I’m willing to be honest so that you might not have to stuggle as bad.

Research. Talk to your kids. Hold a safe place for them. Expect more because they are capable of so much. You are your children’s greatest asset. They need you.