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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Skin up, dad Patrick Matthews The Guardian Wednesday 05 Nov 2003 How do you tell your kids not to smoke dope when you do? Patrick Matthews, who has written a book on cannabis, tries hard not to make a hash of it The smell is unmistakable as I go up the stairs, but if I was in any doubt, the 16-year-old is holding a spliff. A group of my son's friends are standing around and sitting on the sofa. They hadn't expected me back so soon, but they are unfazed by my presence. The boy holds out the joint to me with a courteous nod. It's a classic liberal parent's dilemma, perhaps complicated further by the coming liberalisation of the law. Do you make a row, express silent disapproval, or take a friendly toke? I'm one of a minority who could consider the last option. Like most of my generation, I pretty much gave up in my 20s. However, I came back into contact with dope through writing a book on the subject in the late 90s. Even now I rarely smoke (though recently I taught myself to make hashish - a soothing pastime for wet afternoons). But am I really qualified to dispense Nancy Reagan's advice to my three teenaged children and ask them to "just say no"? There are parents I know who tell their children that all drugs are evil - and feel all the freer to indulge themselves without guilt. This seems to me like saying that Santa Claus exists: the shocking truth is bound to come out eventually. Of course, the children may respect the effort to keep up appearances. A 16-year-old girl I know talks about her mother's "pathetic" attempts to hide a stash of homegrown weed; but she may also be grateful not to have to play Saffy to her mum's Edina. Then there are adults who happily skin up with teenage children. This seems to me an area that takes in every tone of grey, shading off into outright child abuse. I know of someone who encouraged a child of 11 to smoke a joint, surely deserving a spell behind bars, or at least some kind of compulsory treatment. Yet I can't find a simple explanation as to how this case differs from my mother's approach with wine. She was rather self-consciously European, and gave us diluted house red on French holidays from an early age. Why shouldn't this be equally condemned - given that alcohol is, on balance, more harmful than weed? I suspect it is ultimately about sex: illegal drugs have an associated taboo, and we feel that adults who are too cavalier with the barriers between children and adults are on their way to a home life resembling that of Fred and Rosemary West. There are also those who believe that it is positively virtuous to teach older teenagers about drugs by example. I respect this approach, but don't feel quite comfortable about imitating it. For one thing, home life is often a series of emergencies: stolen mobile phones, unexplained absences, inaccessible textbooks for crucial homework. To cope, I think I need a clear, or clearish, head. It is also a question of taste. Cannabis promotes reflection and introspection and is, therefore, well suited to the evening of life. But in our culture it is overwhelmingly used by those in their teens and early 20s. My second-hand taste for Buffy and Missy Elliott strikes me as shameful enough; to skin up with teenagers can feel like a creepy bid for popularity. The cannabis laws that parliament voted to reform - downgrading the drug from class B to C - are an obvious nonsense with their arbitrary terms of enforcement and their savage maximum terms of imprisonment. But dope is now a handy symbol of a new British culture. Just as wine in the 50s and 60s represented an alternative to drabness and puritanism, weed is a badge of a friendlier, less class-bound and more inclusive society than the one I grew up in. The catch is that this brave new world draws in virtually all male teenagers - including on occasions my own. It is equally disingenuous to be shocked by this as it is to ignore a potential danger. When I was at school I found the drug culture of the period was quite good to me. With the help of Red Leb, Thai sticks and the occasional alarming microdot of acid, I was able finally to knuckle down to academic work without feeling too much of a wuss. But we all know regular cannabis users who are alternately inert and paranoaically aware that they should have done something with their lives. What is more, it does seem likely that too much weed really is dangerous. There has been plenty of bad science funded by prohibitionists in the US. But last year a special issue of the British Medical Journal published studies making a convincing case that cannabis use in adolescence is linked with the development of psychosis. The more cannabis you use and the earlier you start, it seems, the more likely it is that you will later become mentally ill. It may be that the best way to protect your children is with threats and scare stories. This seems to work in Sweden, which has repressive policies and the lowest rates of cannabis use by young people in Europe. But even if I wanted to take this approach I have left it a little late. My daughter has no apparent wish ever to smoke weed. My two sons and their friends live 10 minutes away from Camden Town in London and its flourishing street drugs trade, and they have access to any class A drug they want, including crack cocaine and heroin. I have tried to pass on my belief that the problems of drugs relate mainly to their misuse rather than their innate harmfulness. In practice, the boys seem to see almost everything apart from weed as beyond the pale, and cannabis as a mild vice. And although alcohol is this country's preferred recreational drug they can be quite dumb about drink. I have returned to my flat to find the after-effects of a session where a 14-year-old thought it was a good idea to try to make himself sick, while already drunk, so he could go on and drink some more. But I do not find it any more impossible to lay down the law about cannabis than about binge-drinking. Children thrive on clarity and consistency, but rules do not have to be simplistic. I do not find it acceptable to come home and find a group of teenaged stoners camped in the living room. I would be especially outraged if it was at a time when they should be doing their homework. Three years ago, a deputy head-teacher had to deal with my younger son, who had been found with a friend lighting up on the school premises soon after arriving at the start of the school day. He suspended him briefly, with the threat of instant expulsion for a repeat offence. "At a party, at a weekend, when you're 16, fair enough," he said. "At the age of 13, at 9.30 on a Monday morning in the red corridor - you have to be kidding." I couldn't have put it better myself. Patrick Matthews is the author of Cannabis Culture (Bloomsbury, £7.99). A new edition is published this week.
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