(or friends, or friend's kid - etc.) was going to get a bad habit - either smoking grass or drinking alcohol - which one would you rather he got?

Catherine

-- Catherine (catherine@cmjcom.com), October 30, 1999

Answers

With the History of alcohol in the family,and the darkside of drinking myself (almost to death) at one point in my life,I would have to choose POT! To enhance the mind is better than destroying it. Besides did you know that ole' Abe Lincoln was a stoner????

-- Donna Carter (DeeJaye53@hotmail.com), October 30, 1999.

Of the two, drinking liquor too much seems to do the most damage to the person using and the people around them. I've seen some lives ruined by drug use, but usually because they progressed to something harder than pot.

--Al, of Nova Notes.

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), October 30, 1999.

If its in my home, neither. But my reasons for it vary greatly. Pot would be a Very Bad Thing here at the house because of the current laws and drug testing. The adults here both have security clearances, so such a habit could have severe career-busting consequences for other members of the family.

If the laws were not so rigid - if pot were brought to the same level of legality as alcohol, where the 'crimes' are about behavior while using rather than the usage itself, I'd not have any problem with it until it DID become about behavior during or because of.

Hell, if it was legal, I'd love to go back to using it for the very reasons you cite. Far fewer side effects than using alcohol to relax.

But a serious alcohol habit creates more problems. There is alcoholism is my family history and tends to come out in violent 'obnoxious drunk' behavior, and it wreaks havoc with everyone around, whether it's legal or not.

I try hard to focus on surrounding consequences of usage - being responsible to themselves and those around them - rather than some inherent 'evil' in the chemical itself. Some people can use without it being a problem... some people can't. Some drugs present too much risk to get involved with at all, but neither alcohol or pot come into that category inherently.

-- Lynda B. (lyndacat@bigfoot.com), October 30, 1999.

Having experienced both situations with teenagers, I can't really recommend either. Alcohol is potentially far more dangerous than pot, and each of my sons had a serious event with drinking so much that they were in real peril. Those experiences, though, were enough to keep them away from booze on any serious level.

So they tried pot instead...

But the effects of pot create havoc with a kid's ability to function daily at school...get up and get there on time, pay attention in class, do homework, etc. And family interaction/dynamics just ain't always fun when you are dealing with a kid with a drug problem, even though it is *just* pot. Add to that all of the anxiety that entails because...hey...it's not legal and your kid could go to jail and as a parent you get blamed for all of that...lots of guilt going on all the way around....and, what's more, you as a parent had been smoking pot...and what's even more...you discover that your kid was stealing your pot to smoke.

Talk about a dilemma....we instantly stopped partaking at that moment, and for the last 17 years have only gotten high once since then at a friend's.

Of course there were other issues which needed to be addressed, and we did all of those things and in the end everyone pretty much turned out fine, now. Since they are all adults what they do is up to them, but they are all fine functioning human beings, so I guess they survived and I survived....barely.

I rarely drink, and there's alchoholism in my family, so for me the choice would be clear. Of the two, given that one could smoke and still excercise personal responsibility and be a functiional human being, I would personally vote for pot. There are days when I really miss it, and if I had the dough to blow up in smoke, I would probably do it again in a minute...I liked it and it was relaxing.

-- Jo (jmerchant@interaccess.com), October 30, 1999.

Not that I want my kids to have either habit, but if I was to pick the lesser of the two habits I would chose pot. Not many kids wrap themselves around telephone poles while smoking pot, however the incident of kids doing this while driving is extremely high.

-- Alice (Alice@diarist.net), October 30, 1999.

Opps I forgot to insert alcohol in that sentence it should read: Not many kids wrap themselves around telephone poles while smoking pot, however the incident of kids doing this while drinking alcohol and driving is extremely high.

-- Alice (Alice@diarist.net), October 30, 1999.

As the daughter of an alcoholic mother, I have to vote for pot. Alcohol seems to summon up all the demons, where as pot just sort of puts one in a "reflective", gentle mood. I use to smoke it, don't anymore, but don't care if others do, or do it around me. however I prefer if everyone would drive sober, pot definitely alters your reaction when driving, and personally it really pisses me off when people disregard other peoples lives and worlds just because they thought they could drive perfectly while stoned or drunk.

-- Dana Perry (dana@danaperry.com), October 30, 1999.

I'm not a mother so it may be a moot point... but for all the reasons you've stated, Catherine, I'd have to say pot seems by far the lesser of two evils. And it's not always so evil, after all- being such a palliative pain relief for many sick people. One of my closest friends considers it to be almost a cleaning supply. I kid younot- when he tokes up, he turns into the white tornado, and happily zones out cleaning the house from top to bottom!

-- Cameron Perry (cameron@cimtegration.com), October 30, 1999.

>>Sometimes because Tony Bennett sounds better when you're stoned.

Hell, Tony Bennett sounds better when _he's_ stoned.

Ever wonder what Tony Bennett looks like without the wig?

-- Anthony V. Toscano (atoscano@mindspring.com), October 30, 1999.

This question really had me thinking. My father was an alcoholic and my mother believed it would be better for me to smoke pot than drink. The problem is, I got into BIG trouble with pot. I can't quantify it and say how it compares to the trouble I got into when drunk, but I don't think I could make a choice as to which is worse. If someone's going to have a problem with altering their mood through drugs, even ones their doctor prescribes, then it doesn't matter much what the substance is. I guess I'd have to hope I had taught my (imaginary) children well enough that they would recognize the danger signs of trouble and ask for help getting out of it. But I've lost some friends to drugs, and I'd have to hope that they'd never do either.

-- Deborah (dsparks@eticomm.net), October 31, 1999.