I didn’t plan to stop a bike ride with my kids along the Portland, Ore. waterfront to buy legalized pot, but the opportunity presented itself, and I took it.
Marijuana has been increasingly decriminalized and I have struggled with how to discuss the herb and its many stress-relieving medicinal properties — especially as compared to other pharmaceuticals and even alcohol — with my children.
In the end, honesty won out. Yes, I told them, I’ve smoked pot. Yes, I said, I think moderate pot use is okay for adults. The sticky part is that it’s illegal where we live. But here in legal marijuana country, I was excited.
The storefront sale of marijuana seemed, at last, to put it on par with alcohol, which my husband and I consume liberally in front of the kids at home and in public, as do most of the people we know. I often rail against the ridiculousness of mellow pot smoking being illegal while alcohol’s more cacophonous results rage on unencumbered. It was nice to be in a place that agreed.
My sister and I went inside the dispensary, while my husband stayed outside with the rented bikes and the boys. Unlike liquor stores, pot dispensaries — even in Oregon — only allow in kids under 21 who have a medical marijuana card.
I couldn’t help myself: I bought a little. I wondered what I would tell the kids, but the decision was made for me when my husband came in to say the credit card company had called to make sure the purchase was legit.
I think I would probably have told them anyway. After all, making marijuana legal is the right choice, despite naysayers’ accusations that pot hastens memory loss or makes people “lazy.” I note that some of the smartest, most productive people I know are total stoners. (I won’t name names, but you know who you are.)
Compared to attention-deficit meds or anti-depressants, I believe in the efficacy of a little marijuana, which I mentioned as the young salesman rolled my joint. He nodded and offered up his own anecdotal evidence: He’d done great in school while smoking weed, but when his parents switched him to Ritalin, his grades fell.
This is far from scientific proof, but his story rang true. I believe marijuana can softly, gently slow an active brain and, hence, be a good thing to de-stress the mind and the body.
As I walked out with my goods, I felt a pang of guilt and sheepishness, and then resolve. Am I not tired of being unable to use a substance that helped me relax when alcohol, which really doesn’t, was so rampant?
When I walked out, the kids were making jokes, putting fake joints up to their lips with their fingers and taking long drags.
I smiled, and took the ribbing. My 15-year-old snapped a picture of me in front of the dispensary and I wondered if he would send it to his friends, and then I realized I didn’t care. I am a pot supporter, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. People can disagree. But I loved Portland and its pot-supporting ways. I loved chatting about pot with the waiter at dinner, that people all during the week were able to discuss their pot use in the open, unlike the strange secretive way people might let on about the same behavior in New York.
I didn’t smoke in front of my kids, but I’m not sure what I’ll do going forward when the substance likely becomes widely legal. Will I sit after dinner and take a puff as my husband sips his bourbon? I guess only time will tell.
Thank you, Oregon, for giving me the chance to talk to my kids about my beliefs and not make me feel like a criminal.