STONED TEENS MISS OUT ON LIFE, VITAL ASPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT

Administrators and counsellors rack their brains over how to educate
students about drugs and alcohol yet still teach preventative
strategies. It's a losing battle -- for many teens, partying means
trying a substance.

Alcohol remains the preferred means, with marijuana a close second.
Due to the changing values of Canadian society regarding pot, there
have been an increase in school suspensions for marijuana in the past
two years.

Kids translate the bid to decriminalize as meaning marijuana is not so
bad, that smoking dope is no big deal.

But it puts schools in a bind. Reefer madness warnings long ago
shifted to the missive that marijuana was a gateway drug that leads to
harder drugs. It was bad for you and illegal, to boot. Police and
addictions speakers lead seminars, drug sniffing dogs are brought into
schools, surveillance vans try to catch unwary tokers. But what's the
point?

Students caught using are suspended. School officials wag their
fingers, parents express consternation and the kid walks out not
swayed one iota. Of course, for every kid getting high, an adult is
doing the same; parents, celebrities, star athletes, teachers. Kids
know it. It adds up to widescale and unhidden modelling.

Lots of things are potentially harmful -- bungee jumping, trans fats,
icy roads, and unprotected sex. Marijuana isn't even near the top, and
it yet it offers comparable pleasure.

Should schools care? If schools let nature take its course, what will
the outcome be?

The unfortunate reality is that the teenage body is a developing one
- -- so, too, the teenage mind. Kids need to be nurtured; their
personalities and psyches need healthy cultivating. The maturity leap
between Grade 8 and Grade 12 is huge. Ditto between a Grade 12 student
and a 30-year-old.

Research suggests marijuana use has adverse physiological
consequences, but little of the research involves teens whose brain
chemistry is relatively delicate.

Getting high is like checking out of the day's offerings. A kid who
regularly gets high is not learning nor experiencing what the day
offers. Perseverance, motivation, self-confidence, acuity of analysis,
discernment of severity, and depth of interaction -- vital aspects of
development -- diminish when a kid is stoned. A stoned teen is not
fully there, not fully present. Thus, when a youth uses marijuana at
school, significant gaps are created. It's like a television show
being interrupted by power outages.

Is this what we want for our children? Whenever we change a law,
dismissively use the words "it's only pot," or laugh about someone
being stoned we should reflect on the message to our kids.

Mature adults may be prepared for frequent marijuana use but, frankly,
our kids are not. Cannabis needs to be recognized and understood as
more dangerous for our kids than we might want to believe.

As adults and parents we need to step up to the plate and stop
blurring the lines. We need to team with community and school
officials to figure out ways to respond.

As passionate as we are regarding our right to choose for ourselves,
we need to be equally passionate about nurturing our youth.