Not to necessarily defend DARE, but you’d be surprised what your blood-alcohol level might be after one beer. After two, if you consumed them fairly quickly, it’s possible for you to be close to the legal limit.
Get tested sometime. Might well prove to be an eye-opener.
Just something that popped into my head as I read through some of the recent posts on this topic. It is my opportunity to play Devil’s Advocate.
There is a fine, fuzzy line that we as parents tread upon, and it is as follows (and this is all in theory, so save yourselves the trouble of posting a whole bunch of cites proving that traffic-related deaths rank at the top of the list of causes of death for those between the ages of 16 and 20, and pot has never killed anyone):
Would we be responsible parents if we told our kids that they need to exercise caution when exceeding the speed limit because we know they are going to speed anyway no matter what we say? Wouldn’t they be better off if we hammered into their heads that they better not speed or their driving privileges will be revoked? After all, it’s their safety that is at stake.
Based on whatever your answer is to the above:
Why is it okay to tell our kids that while pot is illegal and they can get in a lot of trouble if they get caught, they should use their common sense along with the advice we, the parents, are going to give them on proper usage and restraint?
For the record, I think drug-avoidance education is something that should be taught beginning when kids are young. Waiting until they are already in or approaching their teens may be too late to accomplish anything. At that point, giving them the “it’s not okay with me, but you are going to do it anyway so here are some pointers” speech is probably the only thing we can do.
I read Atheist Princess’s post with some interest. Coming from a teenager who has been exposed to both “styles” of parenting when it comes to drugs, her perspective was one I hadn’t considered. My house was a drug-free zone. My friendships were drug-free zones. My life, as it was controlled by my parents, was a drug-free zone. Atheist Princess became aware of her own mother’s drug use (whether that use continues or it is something she left in her past is unknown), and subsequently dismissed everything her mother ever told her about avoiding drugs. Her dad, knowing he had used (or continues to use?) drugs, took the opposite approach, and it seems to work for Princess.
The problem, as someone mentioned before, is that teenagers are, for the most part, unable to control their impulses. The tendency to overdo it is strong when the brain hasn’t fully matured. While it seems logical to us adults to say that we should make sure that our kids know the risks, to a lot of kids, it sounds like “My parents are cool with me smoking pot as long as I don’t do it in the house.”
…and therein lies that fine, fuzzy line that is the stuff of my nightmares.