Upon initial inspection, it may appear to be the ideal family scene: four individuals engrossed in an activity together, heads bent over a coffee table in the living room. However, we weren’t piecing together a puzzle or engaging in a game of real estate acquisition like Monopoly. No, we were assembling something entirely different. Our version of a cozy night in as a family – consisting of myself, my husband Johnny, our 24-year-old daughter Maisie, and our 20-year-old son Dan – involved purchasing a gram of marijuana, rolling a joint, and getting high together.
I understand if this revelation shocks you. It’s hard for me to believe it myself.
We epitomize a respectable family in every sense. Our daughter is a college graduate, our son is studying at a prestigious university, my husband is a banker, and I am a teacher at a secondary school. We are as far removed from the stereotype of casual drug users as one can imagine. Surprisingly, it is families like ours, from the middle class, who often exhibit the most accepting attitudes towards drugs.
It wasn’t always this way. Early in my teaching career at a grammar school, I attended numerous anti-drug lectures. I became well-versed in the consequences of smoking and the detrimental effects of crack cocaine. I was that mom who endlessly lectured her children about pills and excessive drinking during their teenage years. But I reserved my most vehement criticisms for marijuana.
“Seriously, you two,” I would admonish Maisie and Dan as they rolled their eyes at me. “It’s dangerous. If you smoke it before the age of 25, when the brain’s neural pathways are still developing, it can impair your cognitive abilities. Essentially, it causes brain damage.”
“You don’t need to lecture us with scientific facts,” they would reassure me. “Don’t worry, Mom.” However, I knew from personal experience that what adolescents tell their parents and what they actually do can be vastly different.
Going back to when their father and I met in our early twenties, prior to our current respectability, we didn’t just discover each other at those hazy student parties – we also discovered weed. We set aside such indulgences once he entered the workforce and I began my teacher training. Occasionally, in the years that followed, at a gathering with friends or while on vacation, someone from the group would produce a joint and propose, “Shall we…?” In those moments, we would partake, sharing a nostalgic wink.
However, such days were left in the past upon returning home. That is until our son Dan, at the age of 16, started coming home on Saturday nights reeking of that familiar, sweet-sour scent. We were preparing to have “the talk” when, to our relief, it seemed to stop. We breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Then, three months later, on Christmas Eve of 2019, Dan and Maisie, then 20, came downstairs after an afternoon of playing video games, acting giddy and giggly. Proclaiming their hunger, they proceeded to devour the festive ham and all the mince pies before dozing off in front of the television. With Christmas just around the corner, we didn’t want to spoil the festivities. We held our tongues, but our discussion about the situation lasted into the night, causing me to forget to play the role of Father Christmas and place stockings by the fireplace.
A few days later, we sat both of them down and assumed a demeanor of disappointment rather than anger: expressing our disapproval, reminding them that drug use was illegal and could result in imprisonment, and even threatening to ground them if it happened again.
“But everyone does it, Mom,” they defended themselves. Echoes of my own mother asking, “If everyone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?” resurfaced in my mind. And yet, to a certain extent, they were right. Over 16 percent of young individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 reported using marijuana in the year leading up to June 2022.
Plenty of celebrities, from Rihanna to Miley Cyrus, openly discuss their use of cannabis (another term for marijuana) now that it is legal in certain places like California. Social media platforms are filled with videos of young people smoking weed. Consequently, it is not uncommon to catch a whiff of it while walking down a seemingly middle-class High Street in our affluent southeastern town.
Incredibly, my niece’s pregnancy yoga instructor in the suburban heartland even advised her to smoke marijuana during the early stages of labor, claiming it to be the best muscle relaxant, despite contradicting official medical advice.
Further supporting these increasingly relaxed attitudes, cannabis-related prosecutions have hit a record low. Police have been accused of de facto decriminalization of the drug in certain areas. Home Office data reveals that the number of individuals charged with cannabis possession dropped to a mere 16 percent by March 2022. In Surrey, that figure stood at 6.4 percent, less than one in 15. Therefore, if even law enforcement is turning a blind eye to cannabis, it comes as no surprise that many view it similarly to driving 76 mph on the motorway – technically illegal, but not a significant crime.
But you may wonder, how did my husband and I make the transition from reprimanding our teenagers about their smoking habits to joining them just a few months later? I attribute it to the lockdown, which has brought about numerous changes to our lifestyle. Johnny began working from home, I started teaching remotely, and Dan and Maisie were studying for exams from their respective bedrooms.
Planning our evenings became a delightful ritual, a way to break free from the monotony and enjoy each other’s company despite the circumstances. One Friday, I suggested, “Let’s treat ourselves tonight – let’s make cocktails!”
“Let’s cook steak!” Johnny chimed in.
“Let’s watch the new Jack Reacher!” Dan added eagerly.
“Let’s get high!” Maisie exclaimed.
We all chuckled. Then Johnny looked at me and hesitantly said, “Well, could we?” Maisie mistakenly thought he was asking her and responded, “I have some left over from Christmas. Just enough for one joint.” Presented in such a manner – “just enough for one joint” – it seemed innocuous. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, this final frontier appeared low-risk and insignificant.
Even my arguments about potential brain damage in developing adolescents, which I began to babble about, suddenly seemed futile, considering the horse had already bolted from the stable. “Sorry, Mom,” both children confessed, “but we don’t smoke nearly as much as our friends.”
I wasn’t entirely convinced, but Johnny tipped the scale, stating, “Listen, if they’re smoking with us, at least we know when and can monitor it.” I found myself agreeing with him, especially since our decision to allow them moderate alcohol consumption at home from the age of 14 meant they never engaged in the same excessive drinking as their peers.
However, I couldn’t escape the customary pang of guilt that accompanies making a controversial parental decision. Where was the manual for this situation?
That first puff, as Dan passed me the joint, felt incredibly surreal. This was my baby boy, only 17 years old. I had taught him how to tie his shoelaces, and now he was teaching me how to inhale more effectively. As I handed it over to Maisie, she looked at me, silently seeking approval. I was their mother, the one who was supposed to prevent them from engaging in such activities. And yet, here I was, not only permitting them to smoke marijuana in our living room but, even more unimaginable, participating myself.
Later, we all succumbed to fits of laughter, likely brought on by a mixture of nervous hysteria and the drug’s effects. The following day, Johnny and I exchanged glances, feeling a bit ashamed. “Did I say anything ridiculous?” he asked.
“Were you truly asleep on the couch by ten o’clock?” I inquired. It was then that I realized we were more embarrassed about not appearing cool in front of our children than we were about actually smoking with them in the first place. Did this make it even worse?
“Don’t worry,” Maisie reassured us. “You weren’t too embarrassing.”
Initially, I attributed it… [to be continued]
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