Can You Be a Good Parent and Smoke Weed?*

Over the course of a single decade, it seems that marijuana has shifted from a dirty drug for hippies and burnouts to a substance as sophisticated and socially acceptable as alcohol. In most states, cannabis is legal to some degree — for medical patients or for recreational users — which means you are bound to encounter one or two parents who partake of the good green herb.

Is that okay? Should you be worried about an epidemic of parent pot smokers? Or should you consider taking a hit yourself?

There Is Nothing Inherently Immoral About Using Cannabis

After more than a century of the American public internalizing the messages of “Reefer Madness” and other pot propaganda, it makes sense that you might ascribe morality to using or refusing cannabis — however, doing so is a mistake. There is nothing inherently moral or immoral about a substance, even one that causes psychoactive effects. Just as you likely don’t view drinking beer right or wrong in and of itself, you shouldn’t think of cannabis consumption as a marker of an individual’s moral character. Although you need to remember like drinking in public, it’s important to be aware of the rules around smoking cannabis. For example smoking weed in public is prohibited in Seattle, meaning you’d have to ensure you kept to your home.

That is not to say that people cannot behave immorally under the influence of cannabis. Cannabis users who abuse the substance and neglect responsibilities like parenthood or employment certainly should not be celebrated as paragons. However, it is important to separate the actions of few from the behavior of most. A relatively scant number of cannabis users become addicted to the substance; the vast majority of users are able to control their consumption and control their faculties while high.

A parent who smokes weed is equivalent, morally speaking, to a parent who drinks wine or whisky. Instead of writing that parent off for their choice of substance, you should consider how they behave as a parent or community member. If in all other things they are upstanding, it should be clear that cannabis isn’t a danger to that parent’s children.

For Many Parents, Cannabis Is a Necessary Medical Treatment

Another important reason not to judge cannabis users off the bat is that plenty of parents are also patients, using cannabis as a medical treatment to keep a health condition in check. Cannabis has been used as a method of alleviating pain and nausea since the 1980s, and more than two-thirds of states have a comprehensive medical marijuana program, helping qualified patients get access to cannabis to help manage certain symptoms. And these days the fact you can easily get cannabis edibles on the market means it’s easier than ever to use it to medicate certain conditions.

Not all diseases treated by cannabis are obvious. Chronic pain, for example, is the leading cause of medical cannabis use, and unless the patient is actively complaining about their agony, you are unlikely to see any evidence of their condition.  Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, glaucoma, PTSD — most medical conditions that warrant medical marijuana use are rather severe and virtually invisible to onlookers.

Before you judge a fellow parent for visiting a Nevada dispensary and using cannabis products, you might consider that they are using cannabis as a means of treating a health condition that would otherwise prevent them from being active in their children’s lives.

Parents Should Always Toke With Their Kids in Mind

Still, there are a few best practices for being a pot-loving parent. No parent wants their child to begin partaking of psychoactive substances before it is safe, so to limit kids’ exposure to bud, parents should try to toke out of sight. Generally, it is wise to wait for weed until after the little ones go to bed, or even better, parents should send their kids on playdates when they want some pot. Then, kids are unlikely to see their parents getting high and try to copy it.

Additionally, parents need to keep their cannabis paraphernalia out of reach. This is especially important for edibles or other goodies that kids might consume, but in truth any weed tool, like glass pipes or grinders, are best hidden away when not in use. Parents should stash cannabis stuff on a high shelf in their closet or maybe in a locked cabinet elsewhere in the home.

Finally, if you know that your kids’ friends have parents who use cannabis, you might take extra care to communicate about the drug with your little ones. You can explain everything outlined here — that weed is not inherently immoral and that many people use it for health — and you can set out your expectations for cannabis use if they are approaching adolescence. As you have no doubt learned, knowledge is power, so keeping yourself and your kids informed about cannabis will continue to be a win.