Hey folks.
Late to the party but there's a lot of good info here & I figure people will keep coming back or discovering this thread.
I would like to offer some thoughts and insight on the subject of smoking weed, as I was a smoker until my late 20s so I can perhaps offer a different angle.
I also have a 16yr old son, who's also smoking weed (not our wish but I'll get into this)
First up is there is a big difference between smoking weed and smoking weed with tobacco.
It's rarely discussed, other than on pro-weed sites but a 40+yr friend of mine, who smokes weed medicinally to deal with his adhd (he can't tolerate the normal meds), explains it simply that weed on it own is a natural high, whereas with tobacco, it becomes a very narcotic hit.
I always smoked with tobacco and it took me a long time to realise I was chasing the hit, that the tobacco/weed (or hash) combination was providing.
This actually resulted in me constantly smoking, because I wanted the initial hit, far more than the weed high, which sits on you for sometime after the joint.
I'm not saying tobacco-free smoking is a good thing but I wanted to purposely talk about tobacco in the mix, as I came to liken the use of tobacco with weed as "washing up" the weed which is a term used for converting cocaine into crack cocaine (which is massively more intense & addictive than normal cocaine for anyone not familiar).
Just to explain and alleviate any alarm with this, using tobacco with weed has a similar effect, as the hit is much more intense, it wears off quickly and leaves the user chasing that hit over and over.
Hope that makes sense as the distinction between the two methods is important-enough that you should know and possibly explore this.
I eventually stopped using tobacco (huge battle as many tobacco smokers will know) and after that, weed-only joints became a bit boring so I stopped really easily.
Therefore, some parents may find tobacco-removal and good place to start.
Onto our son. He's old enough to earn so he'll pay for his weed.
We're working on tobacco removal but I won't lie. It's difficult as his claim is he'll go through it too quick, so he keeps coming back to tobacco.
However, I think he is much more anxious and tetchy after using tobacco with weed than without and I have a working theory that tobacco is frequently in the mix around mental health issues. I'm just a parent though, so cannot substantiate this other than from what I have experienced.
Food for thought perhaps..
BTW as others mention, you can't stop them - it's true, as kids will find a way and the more restrictions in place, from our experience, the worse things became.
It did with me. I was terrible tbh but luckily things came good eventually.
A supportive environment with certain rules is the middle ground for us.
Onto some of the previous comments about schools and authorities.
Obviously everyone's experience will be different to the next person but here's ours.
Our son had trouble with the law last year and is coming to the end of a referral order (he was lucky to not be jailed. That was violence and not drugs).
However, the school pastoral team keep pulling him out of classes, trying to get him to "snitch" on troublemakers and dealers.
They really turned on our son, so we took him out and switched to home schooling instead.
Having experienced something similar myself when I was that age, my advice is be very certain what you are getting into, if talking to the school.
Sure, some will be fine but ours even reported our son back to the police with various suspicions which were completely unfounded, which wasted police time and resulted in no further action being applied by the police (who were really unhappy with the school).
The police were a mixed bag. Some are pretty decent - those involved in youth crime especially as at that age, they're very keen to keep offenders out of the system etc.
Those who just deal with whatever the next call is though - and this is strictly our experience - we felt were really underhand.
Therefore the message here is be very aware what you're getting into if you contact the police.
Ask yourself if there are any alternatives first. FRANK has been mentioned here for example.
That's more advisory from experience but there are often local counselling resources etc.
We also found the police looked to getting information and we had a few very pushy conversations where they wanted our son to snitch on dealers and the like, but there would have been zero protection to repercussions - which 100% would have happened as weed is often rolled out by gangs, so you can see the dilemma here.
Hope this helps. I don't have a solution but look into the tobacco use.
All the best