How Much is that Doobie in the Window?

Kids for whom drug use is teetering between “something bad is going to happen” and “something bad is going to happen maybe this afternoon” are frequently asked, “What is smoking pot worth to you?”

Nobody has occasion to interrogate a neurosurgeon who has an occasional puff of marijuana on Saturday and goes on to execute life-saving brain surgeries on Monday.  Of course, neurosurgeons are, by definition, probably not kids. The question is directed at those who are less likely to be performing miracles in the emergency room, more likely to be admitted to one. The kid who is underperforming academically, who has failed to launch, who “can’t find a job,” who is emerging from the basement to borrow mom’s credit card “one last time” to register for another month of violent video games and get another bag of Cheetos, that’s the kid under consideration.

Parents sometimes say that they will no longer support reliance on marijuana and friends. And that they’re not crazy about Percy’s dependence on Valium to get to sleep and amphetamines to encourage stumbling out of bed by the crack of noon. Not to mention occasional use of cocaine and a growing predilection for MDMA.

So when parents–“finally,” it could be argued–do stand up and communicate, “we will no longer support your drug use,” how does the kid respond? For the kid glomming in the metaphorical basement, does he say he would rather be homeless than give up his substances? For the academically gifted kid who is getting Cs in college because of his substance abuse, does he say goodbye to pizza, classes, concerts, lectures, co-eds, sporting events, and all the perks of being young and in college? It’s no secret that out of state public colleges run upwards of $30K for tuition, room, and board; private college cost over double that. Is marijuana worth a quarter of a million dollars over four years?

What if parents put the question in strict economic terms? We will continue to finance your college education if and only if you are clean-no pot, no Ecstasy, no benzos, no nuthin’?

There is no reason to “wait and see” if he outgrows it. There is no point in suggesting “everyone smokes pot in college.” “We let him drink and smoke at home because at least we know he’s safe” is the Neville Chamberlain of all pathetic arguments. If you “let” your kids smoke pot at home, you might just as well go out and buy them a bong.

An acquaintance of mine came home recently and suggested that his wife, the mother of his children aged 12 and 15, should get tested for STDs. He explained that when he used crack cocaine and had unprotected sex with prostitutes that he may have picked up a gift that keeps on giving. Before you can say, “that could never happen to my child; he can’t even spell prostitute” I can only point out that my buddy didn’t START with crack cocaine either. I will also point out that what he was willing to pay for his substances had a simple tally: one wife, two kids, his job at a hedge fund, his $1.8M home in Coral Gables, and the majority of his friends. Last I heard, he was clean–for the fifth time–and no longer homeless. Coral Gables has its issues. The building codes are strict and you’re not allowed to paint your house purple. But the most stringent code enforcement has to be preferable to living is a halfway house and only being allowed to see your kids during supervised visits every other week.

The other side of this equation is what is your child’s substance use worth to you, the parents? You can’t stop your kids from making bad decisions. But you don’t have to finance these choices either. If you are okay with your children taking benzodiazepines, you probably want to be reading somebody else’s blog. Might I suggest “Drugs_are_Good_for_you_until_they_Kill_You.com” and “You_Can_Trust_Drug_Dealers.org” as well as “Never_Mind_the_Machine_Guns.edu”. If you believe that the folks leaving widows and orphans in the families of law enforcement personnel around the globe are the good guys, again, you might want to be considering someone else’s Tuesday morning views. If you agree with me that illegal drugs are not helping anyone except the wealthy narco-traffickers, let’s go back to talking about how to keep your kids safe.

If you “let” your kids take drugs, if you do anything other than draw the line in the sand exactly where you want it, what is your agenda? Are you concerned that your kids won’t fit it with the other ubiquitous potheads? You might want to consider why is it important to you that your kids be popular. If you are concerned that your kids won’t like you if you don’t let them do drugs, you might want to rethink that position as well.

I met with a family recently who related a tragic story. Johnny’s ivy league roommate had taken Xanax, smoked pot, and drank beer before being killed wandering in front of a bus. Johnny was convinced that nothing of the kind could happen to him because he snorted cocaine when he smoked pot and drank beer and stayed away from Xanax. Before I could explain that the order of imbibing might be a “distinction without a difference,” mom expounded on why she would never consider pulling her son out of his ivy league school so that he could go to treatment and get the help that–to this objective observer anyway–he so desperately needed.

“What would we say to the other families from his high school?” she asked, tearfully. “He took so many advanced classes; what would all my friends say when I told them my son was in rehab?”

I could not help but wonder if the mother of the dead roommate would share a similar outlook.

From little acorns, mighty oaks grow. The time to insist that your kids give up “just a little pot on the weekends” is now.