I don’t think it’s “silly” at all, because that isn’t the point I made.
I’m not claiming that buying cannabis illegally is legally equivalent to having a prescription. They’re obviously different. The point is that legality and medical purpose are not the same thing.
We know nothing about why this man uses cannabis. Plenty of people self-medicate chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety and other conditions because NHS access to medical cannabis is exceptionally limited and private prescriptions are expensive. That doesn’t automatically make their reasons recreational.
If the concern is that he’s impaired while caring for his child, driving, or neglecting his responsibilities, then I completely agree that’s a problem. The same would be true if he was drinking heavily, misusing codeine, taking diazepam or any other substance that impaired him.
The issue there is impairment and behaviour, not the fact the substance happens to be cannabis.
And before anyone says “but it smells” lots of things smell. Cigarette smoke, alcohol on someone’s breath, strong perfume and agricultural much spreading smells. That’s an argument about consideration for other people, not about someone’s moral character.
Likewise, “think of the children” isn’t a trump card that ends the discussion. Children need sober, attentive, emotionally available parents. Whether someone meets that standard depends on how they behave, not on the label attached to a substance. A parent who has one prescribed diazepam, one glass of wine or one cannabis vape isn’t automatically a bad parent. Context matters.
What frustrates me is how quickly cannabis strips away all nuance. The moment the word appears, some people stop talking about behaviour and start talking about stereotypes. We don’t know this family. We don’t know his health. We don’t know the amount, the frequency or the effect it has on him.
So yes, OP is perfectly entitled to dislike it. She’s entitled to set whatever boundaries she wants in her marriage. But that’s a completely different discussion from implying that anyone who uses cannabis is irresponsible, morally suspect or “just a drug user”. Those attitudes are rooted far more in decades of stigma than in evidence
There’s nothing virtuous about being uninformed. Repeating decades-old stereotypes with confidence doesn’t make you well informed. it demonstrates how powerful stigma can be when it goes unchallenged.