What To Do If My Child is Using Marijuana?

Posted on October 25, 2021 View all news

by Crystal Collier, PhD, LPC-S author of The NeuroWhereAbouts Guide

Knowledge is the Key

In the era of non-regulated, legal marijuana, parents must empower themselves with current data regarding the effects of mass-produced, genetically modified, high-potency cannabis products. Armed with sound science, parents can confidently adopt a drug-free brain policy that is backed by decades of research documenting marijuana’s deleterious effects on neurodevelopment. Although caregivers never need a reason to keep their children safe, the literature on this topic offers thousands.

First and foremost, follow the functional family rule: Talk, Deal, Trust, Feel. You might be surprised at how many families fail to talk about it using the excuse, ‘Well, I smoked some in high school and I’m okay.’ Some choose not to deal with it by rationalizing, ‘It’s legal now so, it must be safe.’ Others afraid of confrontation decide to avoid the issues that could be causing their kids to turn toward drugs.

Today’s Marijuana: More Dangerous Than Before

A report published in 1972 by the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse deemed marijuana as ‘not a danger to public health’. Today, cannabis fails to receive such a benign classification. Instead, the National Institute on Drug Abuse cites decades of research documenting the adverse physical, mental, relational, and neurodevelopmental effects of cannabis. Unfortunately, this information is overshadowed by misinformation, deceptive advertising, and exploitive social norming techniques used by an unregulated, billion-dollar cannabis industry whose only concern is to create life-long customers. The products they sell are more potent than anything researchers have studied and designed to hook users without concern for public health and safety.

Families in Crisis: Denial and Active Solutions

Once educated about marijuana’s damaging effects, especially on brain development, parents can begin the process of addressing their child’s marijuana abuse by locating a clinician well-versed in youth behavioral health and substance use issues. Finding a counselor or social worker who understands neurodevelopment and change theory will improve the chances for developing a working relationship in which the youth and family may feel supported, especially if hard boundaries must be set.

The clinician will conduct a complete psychosocial assessment to determine a young person’s level of use, stage of change, developmental effects, and environmental dynamics. Yielding an initial diagnosis and potential causes of use will help the clinician make appropriate treatment recommendations. Parents may wonder if their child will be honest when meeting with a clinician fearing that an accurate picture will be difficult to attain. Most often, the floodgates of a young person’s pain and struggles fly open when offered unconditional positive regard from a skilled, Socratic questioning clinician. As any parent knows, secrets have an uncanny way of eventually being revealed. However, this takes time. Committing to participate in counseling as family rather than identifying the youth as the problem will facilitate honesty and healing.

A thorough understanding of a young person’s and their caregiver’s stage of change helps determine initial steps. If a youth is ready for treatment, but their parent is not, the resulting delay in care may yield harmful outcomes such as continued use and deterioration of functioning. If this is the case, parents will benefit from family, or couples work to understand their resistance and overcome obstacles to setting boundaries and receiving help.

More likely, teens and young adults deny the severity of negative effects of marijuana and resist any parental control or therapeutic intervention. At this juncture, it is crucial to remember that it is not a parent’s job to convince their child otherwise or to find a clinician who can. As the wise adage says, ‘A person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still.’  In fact, a young person may never adopt the attitude or beliefs that marijuana is harmful at all. This is not the point. Parents can firmly stand behind their family rule: No drugs because it hurts brain development. Period.

Remembering that not all use is abuse, parents and their kids can use the levels of use chart below to determine where they fall on the continuum. Despite the firm no drug boundary, at this point, allowing for a youth’s autonomy regarding type of intervention is important. Depending on symptom severity, academic standing, and social/emotional needs, parents and children can negotiate the intervention for best fit ranging from therapy and drug testing to residential care.

The only choice that should be off the table is no action at all. Initially, when youth commit to a ‘no drug use’ action plan but fail to follow through, then the consequence is earned rather than imposed by their authority figures. It is customary and therapeutic to institute a behavior contract, not to affect behavior change in the youth but to create a parenting plan for the next time a youth uses marijuana. When devising consequences, remember that ill-conceived rules and harsh punishment have failed to pave the road of healthy decisions. Therefore, the behavior contract should be simple. Keep your brain healthy and drug free to earn rewards and privileges. Period. Using drugs earns the loss of rewards and privileges just like real-world consequences.

From here, caregivers can continue supporting their child by participating in therapy, education, and engaging in prosocial activities together as a family. Youth need to know that their loved ones will never give up trying to keep them safe.

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Image from The NeuroWhereAbouts Guide reprinted with permission by Dr. Crystal Collier

4 thoughts on "What To Do If My Child is Using Marijuana?"

  1. As the mother of a forever 18 year old because of my child’s marijuana addiction (severe cannabis use disorder was the psychiatrist’s diagnosis), I absolutely believe in the facts and recommendations in this article. This is NOT the same pot I knew of.

  2. I used to think marijuana/cannabis was harmless. I started smoking it in the 1970’s.
    I was wrong. Using the “soft drug” in my 20’s reduced my ambition and created other negative consequences. When I became a parent of a teenager, I knew pot was not healthy but didn’t think it was very serious. My wife and I had a zero tolerance stance, however, I wish we had read the above article back then, to know how to proceed. Most of today’s high THC pot is a “hard drug.” My family’s very sad story is proof of that.

    Thank you, Dr Collier!

  3. Excellent advice – I wish I had read this article when my sons were in high school. But I’m linking to it on the website of my non-profit, Be the Influence (www.betheinfluence.us) and including it in my “420” newsletter going out today on 4/20/22! Thank you for this resource.

  4. “The only choice that should be off the table is no action at all” resonated with me. My son has successful cancer treatment in Middle School and his knowledge of drugs was considerable more advanced than his peers. I trusted he had suffered from enough strong side effects of mind altering substances that he would not want to put anything else in his system. He was probably already addicted and skillful at hiding his dependence. We ended up in 3 productive years of active recovery following the outline in this article. Sadly it was still too late to save him.

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