To not understand why drinking alcohol while your kids are asleep is ok but smoking weed is not?

[QuackPorridgeBacon]

I know this may sound like a twattish thread and I understand I may get a lot of shit for it.

The thing is though, I don't understand how wine and gin (two favourites on here) are seemingly ok to consume while kids are in bed sleeping, yet having a smoke is terrible.

Now, putting legalities aside (I don't think they matter seeing how some places are now legalising it can't be that bad) what is the issue with smoking but there seems to be no issue with drinking?

I see friends on fb and the like talking about having a few bottles almost every night some with really small babies (I'm terribly anxious so the younger the child the more I worry, even though I probably shouldn't lol) yet if you have a smoke you are deemed irresponisble and a druggie right up there with crack fs.

One person I know, would drink almost every night and would complain that her partner (now ex) would smoke weed. Yet I see them both as the same really, maybe I see the drinking as worse though because once you are drunk that's it there is no way to really stop that in an emergency. Smoking, you tend to snap out of it need be and are always alert and just snacking will make you feel how you did before anyway.

Basically, wondering what others views are?

Well my DD would be staying at grandparents if I was having a night out

Generally, most of the people I know who do weed, use pipes. They have teeny tin bowls which take one lungful of weed. So yes you can do one of those and it's probably the equivalent of a couple of glasses of wine at most. Same with a bong.

When spliffs are smoked, it's socially - when with friends. The spliffis passed round so no one gets whole one. If there are 10 people, each gets about one puff of big spliff. If there are, say, 4 people, then the spliff is about the size of a roll-up, and they get maybe one good go each.

It is not unusual for dh to come across a spliff he's only had half of. So even if he does roll one just for himself, he tends not to smoke the whole thing in one go. He'll just leave it in ashtray for another time.

It's easier to leave a spliff half smoked than it is to leave a bottle of wine half drunk; or hat least as easy.

So stop talking about not being able to do it in moderation, because you can and most do. It's simply not true.

@U2 - so cannabis could be a trigger. Does that make it worse than alcohol? Are alcoholics predisposed to be dependent on drink and if they'd never touched it, they wouldn't have had a problem?

^^^^^
I don't think it's more dangerous than alcohol no. I just think that for some people it can be very harmful just like alcohol can be and we often hear how much better weed is than alcohol but both have risks and in certain people those risks can include MH problems. Alcohol, weed I don't think one is much better than the other.

See I don't drive anyway so not being able to drive wouldn't worry me. Many people don't drive and manage fine.

Several people have said that you can always tell who the weed smokers are or even who their children are, because of the smell on their clothes and belongings... are you genuinely telling us you can smell EVERY weed smoker?

I can assure you that you can't. You're smelling the lax ones.

When I trust people enough to tell them about my cannabis use I'm genuinely met with shock and disbelief. They don't have a clue.

"You're not the sort" they tell me.

There definitely isn't "a sort" I think to myself, having come across people from all walks of life and all demographics who enjoy the benefits of the herb.

And bear in mind I genuinely do need to trust people before I tell them, precisely because of the depressingly ignorant opinions prevalent on this thread.

The "gateway drug" argument is regularly cropping up on here, yet have you ever heard of a cannabis smoker who hadn't previously tried alcohol or cigarettes?

The one factor that makes it a gateway drug its illegality. It's illegal yet prevalent so when kids inevitably do come into contact with it, they realise it's no big deal, which in turn reduces the stigma of every other illegal drug.

Legalise cannabis and detatch it, and our children, from the world of hard drugs.

They only think they can tell. They can't really. If someone doesn't smell of weed they'd never know. It's just like me saying you can always tell who the drinkers are by the way they stagger about and talk shit. As with anything, it's by degrees.
I smoke cannabis...not that you can tell.

I've been around people who smoke (legally or otherwise) for a solid 30 years and I don't think I've ever seen anybody mix it with tobacco. Well no wonder y'all think it stinks. I don't smoke, myself, but I actually like the way it smells.

The "teachers always know" argument is making me giggle. I know a startling number of teachers (again, not in the UK) who are more likely to smoke/consume than they are to drink when gathered together in groups.

The "gateway drug" theory has been pretty thoroughly disproved, by the way. The people who are likely to do hard drugs might start with marijuana but they're more likely to start with alcohol or prescription drugs. The suggestion that you have to do one of them in order to 'move on' to other drugs, or that you will be compelled to do so, is pretty ridiculous though.

Don't think any teacher has said they know ALL the weed smokers.
What concerns me as a teacher isn't some middle aged middle class grow your own MNers having their regular toke to help them relax/ help their anxiety or relieve their pain. It's the fact that a high number of teenagers who smoke weed buy it (and perhaps aren't even aware of the implications of the chain of drug production and dealing) and also they smoke it with tobacco. In fact most of the ones i come across as a Head of year are regular smokers of cigarettes too. The other thing which concerns me is that many of these kids cite the reason for smoking as trying
To cope with anxiety, stress or feelings
Of inadequacy.