I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but the people of Colorado decided to pick on me and the way I parent my daughters. Because the folks in the Rocky Mountains legalized marijuana, so many things I tell my kids will change.
“Smoking leaves crap in your lungs, except in Colorado.”
“Pot makes you think it is okay to do stupid things and eat donuts, except in Colorado.”
“Lighting a joint will get you arrested, except in Colorado.”
I’ve followed the same strategy for 18 years when talking to my girls about drinking and drugs — focus on health, resisting peer pressure, making good choices. They are not perfect by any means but they have done okay. Now, how do I answer when they say, “But it is legal in Colorado?”
In calmer moments, I’m not so mad Colorado became the Doobie State. I share an ambivalence towards pot with most of my generation. Weed was everywhere from my adolescence on, just about everybody tried it, and I know people who never stopped toking all these many years since high school.
As a parent, though, I never felt giving permission to do drugs or get drunk was the right approach.
I have no trouble telling my kids some things are always bad, should never be tried, and can really mess you up — heroin and crystal meth come to mind — but it would be hard for me to tell my girls their lives would be ruined forever if they inhaled once or had a beer now and then. I am more concerned they feel ready to make choices for themselves and have the tools to say “no” in the company of friends.
A lot of college kids pilgrimage to Amsterdam looking for the fabled hash bars and the experience of smoking a joint in plain sight. Somehow, being another country with a different language and culture, Holland never seemed threatening. Colorado, though, feels too close to home.
Perhaps I have become closed-minded in ways I never imagined, but while I’m against harsh penalties or jail time for kids caught with pot, I’m not ready to say it is okay to light up with friends every day, or that my daughter should be able to pick up some “Panama Red” with milk and eggs at the store.
The answer, of course, may be to embrace this sea change and plan a family vacation to Denver. I could turn into one of those parents who gets stoned with their kids. Another option is to stomp around and curse the ignorant libertarians who voted for this and will bring down modern civilization.
In the end, I suppose, I should just stick to my guns and tell my kids they will have to make decisions for themselves, to think about their health, their bodies, their lives, and try to do what is right for them.
No one is going to force them into a pot-shop out West, nor take a toke at some party. Wherever they are, my girls will be the ones who have to answer when someone asks them, “Want some?”
