Posted on 12/27/2005 9:16:00 AM PST by Wolfie
Grass Roots
58,866 Denver residents voted to legalize pot among them, these moms
They car pool in Crestmoor, read bedtime stories in Washington Park, and when they're away from the kids, these Denver moms sometimes retrieve the hidden baggie, pack a pipe or roll a joint, and smoke a little weed.
"It slows me down," says a Washington Park 40-something mother of a 10-year-old daughter. "It's a nice, relaxing, low-key thing."
One Denver psychologist, the 46-year-old mother of a young child, smokes because it helps her find "that space that is so about me and not about being a parent."
"It helps you stop thinking," says a 37-year-old Crestmoor mother of two, a mildly conservative Republican who, like most of the women interviewed, smokes once or twice a week. "I either can't sleep at night because I'm restless, or I can't get in the mood with my husband because my mind is spinning."
Her favorite pot-delivery method? Homemade brownies.
It wasn't just the stereotypical pot smoker - the 22-year-old skateboarding slacker who measures his days in bong hits, or the hippie sucking back joints from the back of her 1968 VW Bus - who was among the 58,866 Denver residents the city's election commission says voted in November to pass the Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative.
These marijuana-loving mamas helped make Denver the first city to legalize small amounts of pot for private adult use. Under state and federal law, however, possession of marijuana remains illegal, and that is why the women were unwilling to have their names printed.
Pundits galore characterized the yes vote on the initiative as merely symbolic. But it didn't lack meaning to these moms. Marijuana, they say, should be legalized, and the vote is an important first step.
Among other things, the vote "shows just how many pot smokers there are in this city," says a 37-year-old Park Hill publicist, the mother of two young children.
The moms trumpet pot as a safe, healthy alternative to alcohol. Marijuana critics say they're fooling themselves.
"They are sending those kids a message that it's OK to get high, and they intend to send that message," says Dr. Mary Holley, the director of Mothers Against Meth-Amphetamine, in Alabama. The physician works to organize mothers against all illegal drugs. "That's an extremely destructive message." Through their habits, the moms tell their kids that "if he has a problem, he can just go out and get high."
Pot is not harmless, says Christian Hopfer, a psychiatry professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Smoking pot can cause lung cancer, he says, and lead to addiction. (About 8 percent of people who try it become addicted.) Some studies show it can precipitate mental illness, although the incidence is rare. And it does affect judgment and motor skills, he says.
"You could have trouble driving" while stoned. "You're not going to be sharp as you would be otherwise."
But Hopfer is not surprised by pot-smoking among moms.
"Marijuana use is widely distributed throughout the population," he says. "It's not just limited to certain classes."
The moms say they smoked grass more frequently when they were younger. Now, most of them puff away occasionally at a party or at home on a Saturday night.
Many people are capable of smoking pot the same way many drink booze - in small doses, in certain settings and not to excess, says Hopfer.
But just as alcohol breeds desperate alcoholics, those who smoke pot range from sporadic users to addicts. With both substances, Hopfer says, some users are capable of indulging without unraveling their lives.
The Park Hill publicist says she gets "very introspective and very thoughtful" when she smokes from her pipe.
"You smoke some weed, you are laughing," she says. "It brings me back to the times when I was so much more carefree. I'd much rather do that than sit in a smoky bar and drink liquor with my friends."
The Washington Park mother says she doesn't know anybody in her age bracket with children who doesn't smoke pot. In fact, she says, "I know very few people who don't" smoke marijuana, including chief executives and lawyers.
The Park Hill mother says she sometimes goes to parties "with moms and pot brownies. There are babysitters for the kids. It's OK to laugh and carry on with your girlfriends."
At the parties the Crestmoor mother attends, full of middle-aged professional parents, a pot contingent usually thrives somewhere in the house, if not all over the place.
Many of the moms have not disclosed their grass-inhaling secrets to their kids. The kids are too young, they say, and might not absorb the main message the moms want to send when they do get around to some frank talking: that smoking marijuana is for adults. Young brains, the moms say, can't handle marijuana. Like sex and alcohol, the decision about whether to take a toke should be reserved for people with proper seasoning: old enough to vote, finished with high school, stepping into adulthood.
A 36-year-old, laid-off information technology professional wants her 12-year-old daughter to wait until she's 25 to even think about smoking pot.
But that hasn't stopped the north Denver mom from inhaling in front of the girl. She first got stoned around her daughter when the girl was 9 at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, an annual bacchanal that attracts thousands of artists, oddballs and thrill-seekers.
"I don't really care because it's her decision," says the woman's daughter, sitting on a couch, knitting, in her home.
The girl says she has no interest in trying the drug herself, in part because, "I'm not supposed to."
Her mom says she has been routinely smoking pot since she turned 19. Her own father, she says, gave her an ounce of pot for Christmas; he had quit smoking the stuff and thought she would like it.
"I think it was a bad decision on his part," she says.
Still, she loves her weed. Pot, she says, is "a part of who I am. It's fun. It's a way to connect. It's like having a beer with someone. It's less harmful than alcohol, it's not fattening, it's ultimately cheaper. Alcohol is so bad for your body."
If her daughter ever chooses to try a mind-altering drug, the mom hopes she elects marijuana over alcohol, a sentiment echoed by the other moms.
"I'd much rather have her smoke pot than drink because she'll be much less likely to get into bad situations," says the Crestmoor mother, who does a lot of smoking with her husband while in their outdoor hot tub.
As the pot-smoking moms' kids get older, how - and when - do the moms plan to broach the subject of their weaknesses for weed?
"That's going to be a hard one," says the psychologist. "I hope what I'll do is not lie, but talk about safety and age. I'm sorry that I started (smoking) so early (she took her first puff in seventh grade). I think I missed some important developmental stages."
The Washington Park mother also believes she started too young, at age 13.
"You need to have wisdom," she says. "It's like you shouldn't be out there having sex when you are 13."
The psychologist says she'll probably wait until her daughter reaches a not-yet-determined age to break the joint-puffing news. Once she's at the appropriate age, the psychologist says she'll either wait until her daughter asks her about it or her daughter starts showing signs she may be interested in trying the drug herself.
None of the moms is too bothered by the specter of the police. While they all understand that smoking grass remains illegal in Denver, they also agree that the vote on Initiative 100 illustrates Denver's laissez-faire attitude toward weed.
"Now that it's passed," says the Crestmoor mom, "I'm more comfortable talking about it because so many people voted for it."
Or "Dude," at the front, man.
I also replace showering with patchouli oil, wear tie-dye and ripped bell-bottoms but no shoes, eat a vegan diet, have no job except making bead jewelry, live with my parents, support Mumia, can never remember what day of the week it is, and drive an old VW van. Did I miss anything?
Yes, thankfully Americans have thrown off the yolk of prescriptive mood modifiers.
Presumably all of the others are Flaming Liberal Democrats!
At most, this means that one cannot be an effective drug rehab counselors ... a far cry from your claim, "One cannot be an effective/ethical psychologist".
It's more like the author wants to show that not all Republicans are WODbots.
(Yes, kids, that's sarcasm.)
And very good sarcasm, at that. : )
Sounds that way to me too. Does it make sense to try to ban all the avenues by which they might try to effect that escape?
This particular "avenue" has tragic long term consequences for some people who are prone to escapism.
Trying to normalize pot smoking into the american routine may make certain people feel better about themselves but it might also lead other people into making some bad choices.
FReedom rears it's ugly head, we'll have none of that! Blackbird.
You're entitled to your opinion, however many psychological problems have their roots in drug (ab)use. If a psychologist advises someone to quit using pot because it interferes with their daily life while the therapist is him or herself a current user, is in my opinion at the very least a breach of ethics. One of those "Do as I say, not as I do" things that I have always detested.
As for me, I will treat my clients in the most ethical manner possible - and that includes avoiding hypocrisy at all cost.
I suppose the counselor who drinks while advising clients to abstain would run into the same hypocrisy.
I've never seen a "marijuana addict" before; Come to think of it, I've never seen anybody get stoned and come home and beat their wife either.
Anybody who says pot does more damage than alcohol is out of their mind.
Cancer claims are fraudulent as well. While it could be true that marijuana has 10x more of a certain carcinogen than tobacco, 1/100th the amount is smoked.
Carried to its logical conclusion, yes...however alcohol is a legally obtainable substance for adults. This does not make consumption "right" or appropriate, but it is legal. Your arguments revolve around legality, thus if The People do not like current laws, they should labor to change them.
Prohibition did not work. In fact, alcohol consumption increased during those years, solely because it was illegal. Personally, I believe the War on Drugs is a complete waste of time and resources. Education about the effects of substance abuse, teaching personal responsibility and accountability, plus ethical and medically sound psychotherapy are far better answers to simply outlawing drugs.
Ethanol (ETOH) has a variety of effects upon the brain, not the least of which includes opening GABA receptor sites on the surface of the posterior synapse. In some individuals this effect is useful: for instance those demonstrating hypocampal atrophy from long term stress secrete very low levels of GABA and therefore are subject to anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders. ETOH mimics the effects of GABA, as do certain tranquilizers and tetracannibinoids, thereby aborting anxiety attacks, and temporarily relieving the symptoms of depression. The effects on sleep are far more deleterious, for REM periods are supressed by ETOH and most other tranquilizing substances.
ETOH has also been implicated in altering the dopamine reward system, but in some individuals this alteration results in alcoholism. There are however, new drugs that block the dopamine reward system (Campral is one such medication), more or less making ETOH consumption irrelevant for some individuals.
The problem with ETOH is its cumulative physiological effects. The same is true for tranquilizers and other medications, but the often overlooked goal of psychotherapy is to eliminate or significantly decrease dependence on chemical intervention. One way to do this is through rehabilitative excercises designed to regenerate the hypocampus, and thus functionality.
And here we return to the issue of ethics, and the problem is two-fold: First, as identified by the individuals interviewed for this article, is the easy acceptance of regular neurochemical alteration. The second is that insurance companies find it cheaper to medicate patients than actually treat disorders. The former attitude is reinforced by the latter, yet drugs of choice are illegal.
But go ahead and use whatever you wish. Someday you may end up on my "couch", however I will treat you as a human being that deserves a solution - not more medication.
Trying to normalize pot smoking into the american routine may make certain people feel better about themselves but it might also lead other people into making some bad choices.
All equally true about the legality of the drug alcohol. Do you support banning that drug too?
So must an ethical psychologist also be a teetotaler lest he ever have a patient who's a problem drinker?
How is the drug's legal status relevant to the hypocrisy of advising someone to stop doing what one does oneself?
Prohibition did not work. In fact, alcohol consumption increased during those years, solely because it was illegal. Personally, I believe the War on Drugs is a complete waste of time and resources. Education about the effects of substance abuse, teaching personal responsibility and accountability, plus ethical and medically sound psychotherapy are far better answers to simply outlawing drugs.
I agree.
Mother of the year award? /sarcasm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.