THE PARENTING PROBLEMS OF POT

Most Mothers And Fathers Never Tell Their Children Not To Use Marijuana --
Even Though Today's Supply Is More Potent And More Readily Available To Kids

ORLANDO, Fla. -- In the '70s, singer Rick James professed in song his love
for Mary Jane, a thinly veiled hipster reference to marijuana.

These days, middle schoolers fire up joints for a morning buzz. It's
reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and ``reefer.''

That their teens are smoking pot would upset most parents. But a new
national survey shows parental disdain over marijuana use often loses
something in the translation.

The survey released last month by the Hazelden Foundation in Minneapolis
found that 98 percent of parents would be distressed if their teens tried
pot, and 86 percent have talked to their kids about the drug. Yet, only 40
percent advised their kids against indulging. Just one in five parents
stressed that marijuana is illegal.

``This is a classic failure to communicate,'' says Carol Falkowski, a
senior research analyst for Hazelden, a non-profit organization that
provides treatment, education, and prevention services for drug dependency.

The Hazelden survey, which measured parents' attitudes and practices
relative to teen-age marijuana use, is the latest in the recently reignited
marijuana debate. Recent months have seen the release of studies validating
the medicinal value of marijuana and waffling on its nature as a
``gateway'' drug -- one that precedes the abuse of more dangerous drugs.

A report last month from the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse at Columbia University concluded that children 12 to 17 who smoke
marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who do not.

That's a haunting proposition when you consider that of the 182,000 teens
and children who entered treatment in 1996 for substance abuse, according
to that report, nearly half -- 48 percent -- were admitted for marijuana
abuse or addiction.

Why the rise in juvenile marijuana abuse?

Perhaps, say experts, children are hazy about the status of marijuana. The
president tried it. Politicians ponder decriminalizing it. Advocates claim
medicinal value. ``If it's medicine, kids figure how can it be harmful?''
Falkowski says.

In Parents' Own Past

So why aren't parents talking to their kids about pot? The reason may be
simple enough.

Of the parents Hazelden surveyed, 41 percent once smoked marijuana. Many
parents probably sucked a few puffs from a joint, giggled and still managed
to reach middle class. They might not welcome pot use, but the notion that
they did it without negative consequences may dampen the intensity of their
cautions to children.

Things are different today. In the past, adolescents discovered pot in
their late teens or 20s. Now, children too young to get into a theater to
see certain movies without an adult can turn to their locker neighbor for a
joint, or name another child who can supply one.

Pot use among eighth-graders increased from 9.1 percent in 1995 to 11.3
percent in 1996, according to a recent survey. Among 10th-graders,
marijuana use climbed from 17.2 percent to 20.4 percent during the same
period.

The way pot is consumed also has changed. In addition to hand-rolled
cigarettes, teens smoke ``blunts.'' A blunt, says Dr. Scott Farmer,
chairman of the department of psychiatry at Florida Hospital in Orlando, is
a 5-inch cigar in which the tobacco is cored out and replaced with marijuana.

Blunts are mentioned in many popular rap songs, and Farmer says the music
has helped accelerate the migration of the method into middle class America
by romanticizing pot use.

Most troubling, though, is that pot packs a bigger wallop today than it did
30 years ago. The level of tetrahydrocannabinol -- the substance in
marijuana that produces the high -- measures 40 to 100 times more potent
than in the pot that was distributed years ago.

By today's standards, the pot parents once smoked ``would be considered
ditch weed,'' Falkowski says. ``Stronger potency means faster progress from
first use to problem use.''

Dangerous Risks

Problem use portends grave implications such as impaired short-term memory,
stunted intellectual and emotional growth, and increased risk of
unprotected sex.

Parents must speak up, experts say. It's one thing to abhor drug use, but
it is quite another to clearly say so. And, according to Hazelden's poll,
parents aren't saying the right things.

Farmer says parents often misstep by discussing drugs at an ``overly
abstract philosophical level'' or ``insulting their children by addressing
the issue in black and white -- `It's against the law, don't do it' -- and
close the discussion before the child can be valued as a thinking member of
the household.''

Perhaps the most powerful way to immunize children against drug abuse, he
says, is to value the child and his opinions.

Listen to your child. Let him outline his current impressions on drug use.
Draw some examples from his experience.

Maybe he knows of a star athlete who smokes pot, a scenario that
contradicts messages that drugs impair performance. Acknowledge that his
conclusion is derived from observation, and inject your views about the
hazards of drug use.

Here parents need to clearly outline rules and consequences. Just more than
half of parents (55 percent) in the Hazelden survey gave their children any
disciplinary consequences related to pot use.

``Kids have to have a reason to say no,'' says Adele Kempe, supervisor of
the family program at Hanley-Hazelden Center at St. Mary's in West Palm
Beach. ``Parents can provide that by saying they disapprove of it and that
there will be clear consequences so the child can factor that in when
making their decision regarding marijuana.''