20-Year-Old Son Smoking Pot

Unfortunately not many people can grasp this concept anymore.

This would have removed him from my house. If he was 17 it would be a different story but at 20 he is a grown man. Grown men can take care of themselves especially when they want to act like children.

 

You are so right, Haid. Seems like respect, accountability, morals and ethics are waning fast.

I am wondering if I am contributing to the above by NOT removing my son from my home. I've never made idle threats before. Things have never been this serious before. I however am putting maybe too much weight on the ramifications of my actions should I boot him out, such as will this sever our relationship permanently? I've been flip-flopping on this for days.

 

I have a friend who was kicked out of her house for drinking... she turned to her friends and lives int here house now surrounded by alcohol, drugs and shady people, currently her only motivation in life is to "get fucked up!" Now this hurts me sense I was her friend for years and am seeing her spiral down, imagine watching your child do this from the sidelines.

Yow said you're son is motivated, well liked and lives an all around comfy stable life and guess what he smokes pot... Does the fact that he smokes change who he is? So why risk so much over a plant?

Also you are a guid for him, the farther he goes form you the closer he will move twoards drugs, talk to him about pot and try to have an open mind it's not a tenth as bad as most people think.. actually its pretty good.

 

i say kick him out. he deserves it for smoking the evil marihuanah plant. it will teach him a valuable lesson.

 

i like pot

 

not that my comment had anything to do with this thread lol

 

Its called taking the consequences for your own actions. It isn't her parents fault she is spiraling down. People seem to think they are entitled to a nice place to stay with free food but you are not entitled to anything. If you want these things then you don't bite the hand that feed you or you provide for yourself, that simple. People have to take responsibility for themselves. Especially when you are talking a 20 year old. Damn hes a man already and capable of making his own mistakes and dealing with the consequences. At 20 you can find somewhere to smoke your pot while still respecting your parents wishes for the activities that occur in THEIR home. Get a damn job, move out then do what you want on your dime.

I am not against pot. I am a smoker myself, however the question here is who makes the rules for a given household and sorry to say its the one that pays the bills. If you are freeloading then you respect the people you are staying with and follow their rules. If you don't like it move out. Then you can do what you want in your own place.

If you have warned of the consequences then take the action. I don't know your son but he doesn't sound like the type to run off never to be heard of or he wouldn't be living with you at 20. Don't make threats you don't intend to enforce.

 

Very interesting thread. Surprisingly I read every word of it. I can't give you very good advice on this subject. I used to smoke pot & I quit with no problem what so ever. Just not my thing. You have lots of good advice in this thread though, Annii.

You said you weren't sure of posting this here. This is hippy.com. This is like the best place to post. For the most part, the people here are very open minded & understanding. Even if you are not a hippy, my only advice is to browse other threads. I pretty much gaurantee that you will find at least 5 or so places that interest you here.

 

I moved/got kicked at 17. I was smoking lots of weed. I was short on a place to stay, and wound up moving in with a shadier buddy who did a little blow. We started doing it lots together, and while I completed my undergraduate degree I was partying almost every weekend. I've cleaned up my act now, and am starting lawschool in the fall. But I saw lots of people in similar situations go the exact opposite way - I have lots of ex-friends who now spend their paychecks on crack.

This is less about him and more about you - you either get a choice between a son who smokes pot with you, or a son who smokes pot on whom you have absolutely no influence. I went from 19 to 20 without talking to my parents at all, feelings were so bitter.

 

try posting this in the marijuana forum i bet you'll get a lot of interesting answers

 

Well, you certainly are correct "your house your rules" and it us unfortunate that he has broken those rules and you're in the situation that you're in. However, I would re-examine the situation one last time if you haven't acted already.

(I'll do my best not to repeat what any of the previous posters said.)

Your son is 20 years old, as we've pointed out, he's not a child anymore he's a grown up, or at least close to one. At this point in his life he's spending most of the time at school, away from home. You've no doubt done a wonderful job raising him, especially by yourself, judging by everything you've said in your original post. He's getting to the age that, even though you will always be his parent, the relationship needs to change a bit. Because no matter what you want, or how you see things, he has his own way of seeing it as well.

By imposing "my house, my rules" you're only pushing him farther and farther out the door, which is where he's eventually going to end up anyway. He's clearly done research of his own and decided to smoke pot, you don't have to agree with it, and you don't have to want it in your house but I'm not sure the black and white approach is really appropriate at this point in your child's life.

You WON'T change his mind. So why try to push a divide between the two of you? Approach him, not as your son, not as a child, not as a friend, but as a man that you've raised. Imposing authority might work when a child is younger, but looking at what a fine son he (seems) to be, you don't have a very strong argument. Drop the power struggle, or you'll be living in your house with your rules alone; and you certainly don't deserve it.

The amazing thing about children is that you help them grow their whole life and they in turn help you grow and change, that's the best thing about being a parent, isn't it? Perhaps that's what this whole thing is about.

I hate to go off topic but the world, clearly, is not black and white so why live so limited? If his life is together and you're proud of him, be glad, because if it weren't for you that might not be the case. Besides, despite what you've said about seeing things black and white I don't believe you. After all, if you really believed everything were black and white, you wouldn't be here asking advice from hippies.

 

If he smokes, he probably won't drink so much.

I don't drink at all, but I'm smoking right now.

Haha.. my dad always smokes when I have to go somewhere really quick and leave a bubbler sitting out or something. I came back one day and he was like "my, that pipe hits really hard"...

 

Floydianslip6: After all, if you really believed everything were black and white, you wouldn't be here asking advice from hippies.

HIPPIES? There are HIPPIES here? As in "long-haired freaky people"??? Holy crap!

Oh, if you only knew the white bread, Leave It To Beaver world I grew up in in a tiny New England town. I was warned at the age of 10 to stay away from those hippies that hung out at the corner store. No reason given why, and at 10 you didn't ask why your parents were telling you not to do things. Therefore, I was terrified of hippies. I had hippy-phobia. My friends had older brothers and sisters that were hippies and I was fascinated by them! I'd be at their house for dinner and the hippies would be eating with us and all I could do was stare! I'd go back home to my mom with the beehive and dad with the crew cut and they'd ask, 'Were the hippies there?", and they whispered when they said 'hippies'! Too funny! My parents have come a long way since then and we laugh at the mentality.

Dewaholic: Even if you are not a hippy, my only advice is to browse other threads. I pretty much guarantee that you will find at least 5 or so places that interest you here.

Oh, I went to some of those other threads, Dewaholic. Damn near had a stroke. One thread at a time, OK?

Sorry. Got off topic.

Back to Floydianslip6. I appreciated your post and got a lot out of it. I was surprised you are not much older than my son in years, but light years ahead in thinking. The issue isn't his actual partaking of smoking weed. That's his choice. I'd be just as disappointed if he was smoking cigarettes, cigars or a pipe. Smoke + lungs = can't be good. Also, I don't understand the whole "have to feel high" thing...but I guess that's another thread and I'm sure you all would gladly enlighten me!

I just don't want him smoking it or keeping it in the house. That's it. Simple. The complexities arise when he does it anyway. THEN what do I do? I am akin to Haid's thinking. It is thinking from a parent's perspective. My son should respect my wishes since he's living here and still dependent upon me until he graduates from college. Where is the appreciation and the respect? He isn't within these walls all that much, so this shouldn't be a difficult thing for him. This makes me think it has nothing to do with him smoking, but everything to do with me trying to what he thinks is 'control' him, and he doesn't like it. There have been other issues over the years where battles ensued. Curfews, spending nights at a girlfriend's house whose mother was young enough to be my daughter (that one gave me the gray hair that I now spend $7 every 6 weeks to cover). If he had a 20-year-old's maturity, this wouldn't be such a problem.

You are right, Floydianslip6 - I think it is all in my approach with him. I am very quick to point out his shortcomings, not to him, but to myself. Lately I sit back and try to look at the big picture and see what kind of a man he is becoming and all he has accomplished and overcome in the brief time he's been on the planet (that's almost Hippy-speak, isn't it?) Then the big picture shrinks and I see the lying and the deceit and the disrespect and it pisses me off. Enter the Haid Mentality and I want to boot his butt out the door. I would then probably fall in a puddle on the floor after he left.

You have all given me great insight and advice, but bottom line is I still cannot have him smoking pot IN MY HOUSE. Aside from the legality issue, I'm terrified he'll burn the freakin' house down. I am thinking I will have to talk with him now that my anger has simmered a bit, as you said Floydianslip6, treating him like a man, not my son. I don't know what will become of all this, but it has to end very soon. I feel like a big weight is hanging over my head by a thread and he holds the scissors. I am forever sniffing the air like the damned dog. Yesterday I thought I smelled pot in the kitchen, but it was the coffee I had made. See? I'm losing it big time here, though that coffee was exceptionally good...hmmm. I woke up with freakin' chest pains yesterday. He doesn't know I am this stressed. He skips through the house all tra la, isn't life grand? Meanwhile I'm having a coronary.

I am so grateful you have all listened and contributed to this thread. Imagine! Hippies can write...and make sense, too! Maybe one of you Hippies can enlighten the square chick how to use the quote function in this forum.

Peace, man.

 

Perhaps you should have him read this forum, and see how hurt and confused his actions have made you. And see that even most of the "pot smokin' hippies" think he is out of line. Hopefully that will make him weigh the consequences of his previous actions with some alternative (that maybe you could work out together?)

 

this is golden advice^

 

First off, that is great advice. But you might be suprised how hard it will be for him to follow through with that. You don't think that almost every parent that has lost their child in a substance related auto accident said those exact same words??

Knowing you dissaprove is one thing, but destroying his property and his stash is certainly not a way to convey a message of "no questions and no blame". Do you think he'll actually make a call under a substance that you so obviously disagree with to the point of disrespecting HIS personal space and HIS personal property??

Definitely sit down with him and tell him you feel disrespected and talk it out. Don't demand things, don't try to ENFORCE things, or you'll just make the whole thing harder. Besides, how is "he disrespected me first" an excuse to in turn disrespect him? What does that teach? Disrespect begets disrespect begets disrespect....

You've already done research, why not talk to him about responsible consumption? Ask questions and have a REAL DIALOG. You don't need to allow him to "Responsibly consume" in your house to have a talk about what's a good idea and what's not.

There are lots of ways to raise kids, and I'm definitely not an expert, but I find that getting someone to do something, or not do something is often based on approach with understand and respect, not the authority of a police state. At least not if you want to ACTUALLY know what your child is doing, and ACTUALLY have knowledge of HIS choices in his life.

If you'd prefered being lied to, avoided, and patronized that's up to you.

 

This post has been very interesting and I decided to post my 2 cents. So im 19 years old, I live in Canada and like your son, I am a good student, a productive member of society and I smoke pot. Although my parents don't know i smoke (it’s my business, and they don't need to know about it) i like to smoke in my room as well as with my friends. first of all the reason i smoke in my room is because i like to smoke before i sleep but mainly by smoking in my house i don't have to worry about the police and driving stoned (which i don't like to do), also its just a much more comfortable environment. That being said i believe that you should change your policy on smoking weed in your house. First off all weed shouldn’t be illegal, second it isn’t that harmful especially if your son uses a vaporizer which doesn’t harm the lungs, and finally just like going 10 km/h over the speed limit it’s really not a big deal. Furthermore your son is right when he says its safer for him to smoke in the house that on the street, i have a friend with a criminal record (which has now been pardoned) because of petty weed position. Finally sometimes it is okay to break the law, when a law is unjust and just plain wrong. It is up to the people to take a stance against the government when they abuse their power. America and Canada alike were founded on the principle that the people should control the country. Like our forefathers sometimes breaking the rules is alright if you are doing it for a better life for yourself and your family. Sorry for the rant I just hate it when the government starts controlling our lives with stupid laws they have no right to inforce. Ultimately its your house and if you see nothing wrong with smoking pot (aside for it being illegal) than my vote is for allowing your son to smoke in his room. Tough love is not the way to treat a 20 year old, im sorry it just isn’t worth risking your relationship over something so simple, if he was a coke addict who stole money from you then I would understand, but this is not even in the same ballpark. Sometimes when you love someone you must make reasonable compromises in order protect the relationship.

 

If you were able to catch him smoking twice when he knew you didn't like it, he's not being very careful. Tell him that if he's going to smoke pot else where, he needs to be much more careful.

Tell your son this: First time offenders with less than an ounce of pot don't usually go to jail, but the fines and legal fees aren't cheap. My sister got caught and it cost my parents over $2000. Plus a pot charge can also make him lose any financial aid he has. This info may help him respect your wishes more and should make him more careful when he does smoke.

And if your son has more than an ounce of weed, thats really stupid. That can lead to an intent to distribute charge, which is somwhat serious jail time.