Young Adults using weed - big deal or no?

I think you misunderstood. If weed was legal the people wouldn't need to buy it from illegal dealers. They could buy from a shop legally

Criminals are under no obligation to change their business model and modes of practice just because some misguided souls decided to make it harder to prosecute them.

"Put it this way - the girl was nice enough to invite her dad’s partner’s not very sociable kids to hang out with her friends and just acted how she would do normally. She didn’t force them to do drugs or mock them. And as thanks, she got pearl-clutching tattle-taling.

She’ll not make that mistake again!"

This!

'Keeping the peace' is not always the right thing to do. If you bend to the manipulation and power play of your kids and try to 'tell off' a 23 year old woman, who was being friendly and inclusive, all that will happen is a fracturing of the relationship between you and her and potentially between you and your dp.
I'll be honest, in your step daughter's position I'd tell anyone attempting to manage my life in these circumstances to fuck right off. And that's going to do family relationships no good at all!

You need to work on your own boundaries a bit OP. I think it's great that you can be dispassionate about your own children's personalities - so many parents will never admit their dc are anything less than 100% perfect at all times. We all love our kids equally, but it is important to be able to recognise when they might be in the wrong!
I would honestly say to my kids that they weren't forced to be there, no pressure on them to join in and that you cannot be telling another adult what is permitted in their own home - remind them she was nice to include them snd they will have to learn how to cope with a bit of discomfort. Say you hope they will join you on holiday but it's their decision. You do have to call their bluff a bit.

And stop paying any mind to your ex husband! They can only manipulate you if you keep allowing it.

Agree with all the other commenters who said the weed isn't the issue, but the young adults who are unable to cope with people around them making different choices and manipulating their parents are terrible. Expecting an adult to be "told off" shows their appalling infantilisation.

Agree with the commenters pointing out that legalisation solves the problems with supply chain, although many users buy locally grown which also negates this.

The comments about how anyone who smokes is a lazy zombie are hilarious, I don't know any successful people who haven't.

Alcohol absolutely ruins lives but as it is legal people don't clutch their pearls about it. It won't be too long until it is legalised, branded and taxed here and then how will all these commenters cope!

They are GROWN ADULTS if I went running to my parents at that age and said x was smoking weed and I didn’t like it they would have said well why didn’t you leave not mother me to death

So again legalization prevents giving money to the criminal element

• don’t want to be!! But they have gone running to my ex which forces me to be involved or lose them effectively. This happens a lot - they run to their dad and then I have to bend over backwards pleasing them or all I get is “well im just going to move in with dad and never visit then* very nasty behaviour, let them move in, they sound deeply unpleasant

@PrueRamsay
They're not kids at 18/20!! Honestly the infantilising on MN, they can speak up and stop trying to manipulate and be so bloody entitled to think they can have daddy tell
off an adult.

I feel really sorry for these kids.

They have told you how uncomfortable they are with this situation but you don’t seem to care about their feelings, only about your DP.

Choose wisely.

Hi @Jgermansay Firstly I am at home. Secondly I don’t apologise for not finding that post funny.

Did you forget your sense of humour at home today.

What I’m saying is that ONE of the issues is the funding of criminal gangs who exploit children and vulnerable adults in the commission of their crimes.

I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to give money to criminals which creates the demand for more cuckooing, violent crime, people trafficking and child abuse and I certainly wouldn’t want my teenagers in any way involved.

Maybe @Errors but preferably not one delivered by a 14 year old who should be doing their homework instead of working for an organised criminal gang.

Ironically, there a few posters on this thread that could really do with smoking a joint

I’m not saying otherwise @RunNo I’m just pointing out that kids are exploited in every type of place.

County lines situations exist in city environments too. They may not be travelling as far but they are still being exploited. Bear in mind too the parents who are going to prison because they are taking the blame for the firearms hidden in their homes by their exploited kids. Vulnerable people paid £50 to take a huge amount of drugs from one end of the city to another then getting caught and having to do very long stretches in prison. This is the reality.

The County Lines point is separate to other issues @housemaus but there has been a lot of talk of how harmless drugs are and attempts to make people who are anti seem a bit uncool. Nothing could be further from the truth and I don’t mind saying so.

This practised (and clearly effective) manipulative behaviour is far more alarming to me than some adults smoking weed at a party. Your younger kids may be innocents in terms of recreational drug use but they're obviously very mature when it comes to playing their parents off against each other to get their own way. It's not a great character trait to have as they enter the adult world, and this is evidence of that - instead of making friends and bonding with the other young adults in thier family they've managed to piss everyone off and will likely never have a close relationship with the others.

Of course they could have left the party any time they wanted but I suspect creating this kind of drama was the point of it all.

I think your kids are being wet lettuces, tbh!

The legality or morality or whatever else of weed is irrelevant here, if you ask me, and other posters going 'WELL IT'S DISGUSTING COUNTY LINES ETC ETC' are missing the point.

Some adults were in a scenario with other adults where they felt uncomfortable. They had the option to leave, and they didn't - if they really didn't have money and felt so uncomfortable they desperately wanted to go, they could have called you or borrowed some cash off their older sibling who was fine with the situation. Weird lack of initiative.

They're now asking their mum to tell off some other adults for them, which is very strange. You're not in a parental role to your partner's daughter so you have no sway over telling her what to do, nor should you IMO. "they just want someone to tell his daughter they were uncomfortable" is quite strange to me - they sound very young and/or coddled. I'm not being judgemental about it because it sounds like you're not the one doing the coddling OP, but it's very playground to want to make sure everyone knows they were upset instead of them using their own autonomy to deal with the situation. Can you imagine them asking a parent to ring up their boss and make sure they knew they were upset by something they said?

I think your kids need to grow up a bit, and I mean that nicely. Otherwise they're going to find life very difficult - if I were you OP I'd tell them firmly but kindly that they're adults now and it's on them to navigate social situations they're not comfortable with as you can't expect your mum to step in for you. They're entitled to their feelings on drugs but it could have been something entirely different - her doing a Satantic ritual or being unspeakably rude to all her guests or blasting death metal at the entire party, it's not the actual thing itself that's relevant, it's that two people who are of an age to be independent want their mum to tell off another adult for them.

How old are you? Pathetic.

Not really, they do sound like they lack resilience and need to grow up. The 18 year old sounds particularly wet - I have a 17 and a 19 year old and they’re both perfectly capable of getting a train/bus/uber on their own.

Agree this is about the family dynamics more than the weed itself, your partner’s daughter did nothing wrong and no one should be telling her off!

it sounds like a power play, your kids want to assert their preferences and have them prioritised - assume this is something they’ve come to expect and feel entitled to. This is the discussion that needs to be had imo.

What a non event.

Snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches.

They're a bit old to be running to mummy and grassing up the other lot over a bit of weed.

As other have said, just say it's not for me and either leave or stay and enjoy the evening in a different way.

Berkshire is hardly the arse end of nowhere .... surely they've come across this before.