Marijuana legalization and/or use is a controversial topic. While it is already legal in some places, notably Amsterdam, and measures are being introduced in some parts of the United States to gradually liberalize its acceptance and use (medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and other states, for example), it is still a long way from general public acceptance. In this paper, I will interview three different people about their opinions on marijuana. The names of the people interviewed have been changed to protect their identities, as this topic is fairly controversial and the opinions expressed were often quite candid.
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The first person I interviewed is a family friend. She is 28 years old, married, and has two children. For the purposes of this paper, we will call her Alice. When asked if she had ever used marijuana, she admitted to having been a heavy user during high school and for the short period of time she spent at a university before becoming pregnant with her first child and transferring to a technical college to get a more practical education for her situation. When asked why she stopped using marijuana, she explained that at some point when her first child was an infant, she thought about the consequences if something were to happen to her child and if she had to communicate with authorities or hospital staff while stoned. This same reasoning also led to a drastic reduction in alcohol consumption for both her and her husband. I asked her what her general opinion on marijuana was. She replied that, as a health professional (she is a nurse), she thought marijuana was healthier and safer for the community than alcohol, but that as long as it remained illegal, the risks were too great for her to consider using it herself at this time. I asked her then if she would use marijuana if it were legalized, and she replied that she probably would occasionally. She added that she was “sure” that her husband would. I then asked her how she as a mother would react in a few years if she found out her teenage son was using marijuana. She winced and said that they were already dreading even thinking about parenting teenagers. “Even if they do only a fraction of the stuff Jim [her husband] and I did, it’s all so dangerous!” she told me. She indicated, however, that they would encourage responsible use. “You can’t stop them from doing everything. You have to make priorities. For example, I think pretty much anything is better than them drinking and driving.”
The next person I interviewed was Alice’s mother, Mary. Mary is 46 years old and is a real estate agent. She has been married to her husband for 25 years. They have three children: Alice, 28, who we have already discussed; Andrea, 24, in school and also working as a CNA and still living at home; and Eric, 19, just out of high school, and working his first part-time job while also living at home. She says that the most important thing to her is family. When I ask if she has ever used marijuana, she admits that she did “a couple of times” as a teenager, but that she never really saw the appeal. She also adds that, before they had children, her husband had “smoked a lot of pot.” I asked if he did so around her. She told me yes, he did. “I didn’t mind- I smoked cigarettes and still do, and he doesn’t smoke cigarettes. So it was kind of a trade-off.” She tells me that they have many friends in their age range that smoke marijuana, and that sometimes her husband will partake. She tells me she is present when they do, and sees nothing wrong with it. “It’s almost strange that I don’t smoke with them, since there’s probably fewer consequences for me than most of them- I’m self-employed and don’t have to worry about drug tests.” I ask her how she thinks her friends get around drug testing while employed, and she tells me, “It seems like if you’ve been somewhere long enough and they trust you, they stop caring. It’s only when you’re first hired that you have to worry.” She points out a mutual friend, a man in his 50s, who frequently smokes marijuana. “He just got a new job and stopped smoking for a while. He says in another few months he’ll start again.” She also adds that she thinks employers are less likely to suspect older people of smoking pot. “They might get really suspicious of a young kid, or somebody who obviously lives a hippy lifestyle. But if you just seem like an ordinary parent or grandparent, they probably don’t even care if you smoke sometimes on the weekends.” Then, I change the topic to her kids. “Alice was a huge pothead,” she acknowledges, “and I was stricter on her than on the others because she was the first. But I never had to worry about her driving. If she got too messed up, she’d just stay where she was. And she always called.” She admits knowing that Alice frequently smoked pot in her room. “You can’t hide a smell that distinctive. Not with central ventilation, at least!” Andrea, she says, has maybe tried pot, but obviously never used it heavily. And Eric has too, she thinks, although he may have had a short phase in high school in which he was a heavy user. She adds that she knows that his cousin, who is the same age he is, has been using it “more than she probably should” lately. “But with teenagers, that can happen with anything, alcohol too.”
The last person I interviewed is a friend’s ex-boyfriend. I picked him to interview because I knew he was and is a heavy marijuana user. We’ll call him Jacob. Jacob is 32. He frequently goes through long stretches of unemployment. When he is employed, he is generally working in construction. He lives with his father, who is somewhere in his 50s and is a reclusive alcoholic who rarely leaves the house. I ask Jacob how he feels about marijuana. He tells me that, to him, it’s like a way of life. “I don’t want to do anything if I’m not stoned. I’ve been smoking for so long, that if I’m not stoned, it doesn’t feel right.” He acknowledges that he is a heavy alcohol user as well. “But if I can’t have a beer, I’m fine. If I can’t have pot, then I don’t function right.” He admits to smoking regularly while driving, but sees nothing wrong with it. He also admits to selling pot on occasion, because “then the pot pays for itself.” I ask him whether he thinks it should be legalized, and he replies, “Of course. At least medical marijuana. Up in Michigan [where he has relatives, who he says also smoke pot], it’s not hard to get a prescription. My brother got one for psoriasis.” But he also admits that because pot has become such a huge part of his life even while it is still illegal in his state, he doesn’t see legalization as really changing much. “I’ll still be smoking the same way. The only thing that will change is what happens if I get caught.” I ask him if he has ever been caught, and he replies, “Only for paraphernalia.” He also notes that an ex-girlfriend of his, “Lisa”, who is a mutual friend, lived with him for several months. “She didn’t smoke, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. She’d even go with to my dealer. It wasn’t a big deal to her.” He also adds that pretty much all of his seven siblings smoke pot, some more regularly than others. His brother smoked nearly as regularly as he did, even though his brother’s wife did not approve. “She wouldn’t let us do it in the house, we always had to go to the garage. Then, when she had the baby [the couple’s first], she stopped letting him do it at all. He still does, of course, he just does it secretly.” I ask him if he thinks the expense of pot perhaps contributed to her decision, given the expense of raising a baby. “Pot is not expensive,” he replies. “He spends way more in beer in a week. And now he’ll just be buying more of that.”
My own opinion on this topic is pretty much the same as Alice’s opinion. It would probably be a good thing for society if it were somewhat legalized in that it would hopefully lower alcohol consumption, which is arguably worse for society and individuals than marijuana. Marijuana is, however, illegal at the moment, and thus the risks of at least regularly consuming it are far too great to trifle with, particularly if you are a parent. However, it is still obvious that there is a growing degree of acceptance of recreational marijuana in the United States at the moment, and I believe I will likely see it fully legalized within my lifetime. I also think that, overall, legalization is good for society. It will greatly reduce the number of people arrested on drug charges, causing overcrowding of prisons. While it is important to prosecute certain kinds of drug dealers to the fullest extent of the law, many people now are starting to see the ridiculousness of sending someone to jail for years for a small amount of marijuana.
Of the three people I interviewed then, I obviously agree most with Alice. Her reasoning is good, and reflects good parenting skills. She has made dramatic life changes to become a good parent, and that is reflected in her well-reasoned argument that, were something to happen to one of the children, it would be bad to be impaired at that time, from anything, not just marijuana; and also in light of the fact that, in an extreme case, such behavior could even get her kids taken away from her by child services. I think this was the best and most interesting stance any of these three people took about marijuana.
I agreed with Jacob, on the other hand, the least. For one thing, despite pot being such an important part of his life that he literally doesn’t believe he can function without it properly, he also never seems to have put much thought into the reasons why this is the case or, really, anything having to do with the legality of the situation. He says that legalization won’t really change anything for him other than the consequences of getting caught; yet he seems to have no idea of the seriousness of these consequences, particularly when he deals it (which, when asked, he said was not dealing, rather, distributing- another example of him downplaying his situation). His comments about the ex-girlfriend not being bothered by his pot usage were also masking the truth- when I asked her, she told me his pot usage, and particularly his dealing in it, had been a major cause of the end of their relationship: “We were in my car and got pulled over once. I saw him stuff a bag of weed from his pocket in between the seats. I can only imagine that, if the cop had found it, he would have said it wasn’t his- in my car. So he could have gotten me in big trouble for something I didn’t do. I’ve heard of that happening to other people. It wasn’t worth it.”
Of the topics we discussed in this class, I think the one that had the greatest impact on me personally was testing in advance for genetic disease. It’s amazing the things that science can do these days, and screening in advance for genetic disease and risk factors is of great importance in trying to prevent unnecessary suffering. I think it’s amazing that there have been such great results so far in targeting groups where couples should be tested before conception for risk level, such as the Ashkenazi Jews for Tay-Sachs and other diseases. This will certainly help prevent some degree of unnecessary suffering in the future.
References:
Interview with “Alice”, conducted in her home on 4/20/2013.
Interview with “Mary”, conducted in her home on 4/21/2013.
Interview with “Jacob”, conducted at his home on 4/25/2013.
Interview with “Lisa”, conducted by phone on 4/25/2013.
Pence, Gregory E. (2010). “Chapter 14: Testing in Advance for Genetic Disease”.
Medical Ethics. 6th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.
