Parenting as a Cannabis Consumer

As a cannabis parent......

There are many things you really have to be aware of. The first being a society that believes you can not be...aware, that is.

As a mother of three who uses cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, I had to decide a very long time ago how I was going to properly raise my children so that they did not glamorize nor chase the plant earlier than they should in life. It took a while, but about six years ago I was introduced to a wonderful man who completely changed my mind about the wonderful world of the cannabis plant.

Before then, I was simply out for the high, the mental relief it gave me without the uncontrollable body reactions that came with alcohol.

I found a book called Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839-1972 (Cannabis: Collected Clinical Papers), this book as well as Cannabis in Medical Practice, have been absolutely integral to the education I share with my children about cannabis.

These books opened up a whole new world to me, scientific data and studies from around the world. The information contained within the book was completely different that anything I had been taught in school or by my parents or peers. This showed me, in not so simple terms, that the science behind the biological effects of cannabis on the body is really pretty simple, natural, and not to be taken lightly.

I learned that our brains have a natural lipid that is identical to the cannabanoids that cannabis puts in the system. These hormones have specific receptors in our brains; only one other plant shares this similarity to the human body....and that plant is the opium poppy. Knowing the basics of hormone and brain development, it was easy to determine that during the body's hormonal development, when it's trying to figure out how much you will need during your life, that if you put an outside source of the lipid in your body that it will tend to not make enough naturally. The human body on average hits puberty (that time of life that hormone development becomes set) between the ages of 9-15, with the process usually being finished between the ages of 18-25. It is simply a reasonable and logical determination that if you add outside cannabanoids during this time you will end up with a natural imbalance later in life.

I learned that these receptors that move natural cannabanoids through the body are connected to the Nervous system, the Digestive system, the Respiratory system, the Cardiovascular system, the Endocrine system (that's a given), the Immune system and the Reproductive systems within the human body, encapsulating a system all it's own as well, the endocannabinoid system. Which, again, reasonable and logically leaves the determination that cannabanoids are a requirement of keeping all these systems working correctly.

I learned that a vast majority of the Law Enforcement testing done to attempt to identify cannabis users has resulted in the findings of the plant being an integral and dependable form of medicine. I learned that the Federal government themselves still produce cannabis for a select few patients who were part of a research program that the FDA did not disband until 1992. I learned that in 1997, 36 states enacted an affirmative defense for the plant, with proof of medical necessity.

I also learned, that the Judge from the very organization that continues to keep the plant creating criminals on a daily basis, the DEA, in September of 1988 ruled that cannabis should be rescheduled, issuing a 63 page ruling that included findings of fact that the statements made on the controlled substance act were not justifiable.

These are the things I teach my children. I have them to the point that they always ask when they see baked goods if they are medicated, something that I have been labeled a negligent parent for. Apparently, the children are not supposed to know facts, and we are supposed to run the risk of emergency room visits instead of educating our children how to not end up in that situation.

A few years ago, while we had visitors over for a BBQ, my son, who was well aware of what the peanut butter cookies that were stashed away in the freezer were, decided to get into them. He even told the investigator that he knew he wasn't supposed to get into them, but did anyway. There were probably 15 people in the house, in and out from the backyard to the kitchen. Late in the evening, my son tells me he feels as if his head is separating from his body. Able to recognize what had happened, we asked him if he had gotten into the cookies, and he was honest. At the time, he was seeing a counselor that we spoke with about the incident, all the while knowing the risk to having the system step into our lives and making it hell. It did not happen then.

In March of this year, 2014, my son was in school doing an assignment of looking through magazines to cut out pictures. I have not been told exactly what the assignment was, but apparently they came across a picture of some brownies and one of the other children said something about how good they looked. My son, taught to always ask before taking any home-made baked goods, made the comment of “You have to make sure they're not medicated, first.” And this is where the story gets odd, first of all, I have heard it only from my children, neither social services nor the school has told me how things went from here. My son said that after he said that, the teacher pulled him aside and began to question him until he told them that yes, he had gotten into mom and dad's cookies once and it made him feel “weird”. The next two weeks turned out to be hit and miss as the social services came to see the house and we were not home. The Monday after spring break, I got a call from my eldest daughter that the social services ladies were on the way to the house, and she explained as well as she could what it was for. I was not home at the time, but knew that my husband would deal with it. We have a counselor that comes into our home once a week, and so we did refuse to allow these strangers into our home. They spoke with my husband for about ten minutes, and to me for no longer than five as I had returned before they left.

I informed them that yes, I educate my children with the facts and not the propaganda that was taught to me and is spewed around society as if it were gold. I also stood to the fact that if they wished to know what our home life was like, to speak to the Axis counselor that already came into our home. They seemed absolutely surprised when I told them the incident has happened years before, and I was asked “Oh, it didn't happen in the past couple weeks?” I also informed them that since then, we no longer have edibles in the house as I am no longer supplying the local dispensary.

The counselor informed me within two weeks that social services had told her the case was closed.

Six weeks after all of this, my husband and I receive notices from the county social services that we have been confirmed in allegations of neglect/abuse with my son. The two allegations are 1) Environment Injurious , which I assume has to do with the cannabis being in the home, even though we are both legitimate patients, responsible and educate our kids as to why we use and why they need to wait until a responsible decision is made; and 2) Lack of Supervision/Supervision Inconsistent with Child’s Needs, which in essence states that I left my child alone for extended periods of time. One funny thing, is that one of the signatures on the paper, came from a woman who has told me multiple times in the past five years that I am doing it right educating them as we do....hypocrisy at it's finest.

Now, there are issues all over the state about children and adults both being rushed to the emergency room because of edibles. I feel it is because of lack of education. If you teach the adults what should properly be done, the children will learn eventually, quicker if the adults are honest and do not try to hide it. In my opinion, and I know that it is simply that, you can not expect a safe environment if you/they are not aware of everything in it.

For those parents who tell their children nothing, or who allow them to smoke, I do not hold any grudge nor do I feel I must force them to do things the way I do. But, I will stand that the system does not treat me as such a parent. Yes, my children know a lot about cannabis, enough to keep them, at least my eldest, from wanting to get into the plant as early as I did in life.

The county needed a statistic, as well as another way to intimidate us in an attempt to not file the lawsuit against them. I suppose we kind of set ourselves up for this. But, we will also stand for justice, and no body we have ever come across on a personal nor business capacity really can even understand why such a thing has happened, including some of the highest legal minds in the area. This will be interesting to see how it turns out, as I have requested an audience with the board that confirmed us as well as am appealing it to the state. It mostly depends on the two lawsuits going on to define State rights in the capitol...as well as the amount of public outcry that we can manage for educating our children instead of allowing them to go about it as every other child does. I was hidden from cannabis as a child, and by that..when I came across it as a teenager I did not have the tools to make the right decision...I will NOT leave my kids in that same situation.