How can I handle my teenager's cannabis use and difficult peer group?

[mrsCD]

My 16.5 year old has started smoking weed and has found himself a new peer group who I worry will lead him into making poor choices. I'm open minded and know that experimentation is a normal part of growing up, but his now almost daily useage of weed is causing me so much anxiety as I don't know how to get it through to him the long term consequences. Obviously I know nothing and he knows much better than me! The kids he is hanging round with are younger, 15 & 14 and one of the 14 year olds is dealing.
It's a tricky situation right now as one of his other friends in this peer group killed himself last Saturday night, so we now have to contend with the grief aspect too.
I'm completely overwhelmed and clueless on how to manage the situation. I have spoken to a couple of counselling services this week and the advice I've been given is to not dis his friends, it'll likely push him closer to them, to monitor his weed useage but also be careful due to the grief aspect as he might be using more to deal with the loss.
Any advice or tips on the weed taking, but how to manage the peer group issue would be much appreciated.

I should have also mentioned, some of the peer group (the main ones he's friendly with) are under social care, their mum is an alcoholic and a single parent, she let's t in em smoke weed in the house and my son has been spending quite a lot of time there.

The sweet cute approach is not going to work here.

your son is an addict. They need help. Check out the website talk to Frank.

this is also safeguarding issue, contact the school and GP

Have you anywhere you can pack him off to fir the summer? Has ge got a job? Anything to break the bonds of this toxic group. He will off to college or 6th form and I dont think hanging around with young druggies will be cool. But they will be tenacious. I've no sympathy for dealers, no matter their age(he is being used by adults, but thats not your problem) And id be talking to school and the police. As someone who's son was a habitual user throughout his late teens, 20s and has kicked it in his 30s, I wish id been a lot more hardline at the beginning(but he was hanging around with nice middle class boys, vicars son, teacher's kids.)

@duod thanks - if this is only recent behavior, and having lost a friend to suicide, how do you know it's addiction, and not just a way to cope?
I have spoken with Talk to Frank, who have said it's a delicate situation that will need careful management - the grief aspect is huge right now, his friends funeral is on 9th July. I'm trying to respect what he's going through but also petrified about the crowd he's hanging round with leading him into a really bad situation.

@Ohwhatfuckeryitistoride I'm trying to help him find a part time job currently, which isn't as easy as I thought it would be! We could send him to his grandads for the summer, he lives really remote though and I wouldn't trust my son to not just jump on the first bus back. I'm trying to encourage him to do things he used to enjoy, mountain biking, hill walking with his old peer group, even play his computer - he's not interested in any of it. I asked him about his 14 year old friends this morning which really got his back up and he said to stop going on about them , it's his choice - he was pretty cross and stormed away upstairs. I went up and apologized and told him it's only because I care, but he's really no interest in listening to anything I say right now 😭

Being open minded to the degree our brains fall out is not a good idea when it comes to this

The problem with weed consumption is that it feels good at the time, but removes motivation and can cause aggression and anxiety, leading to you needing more of it. You lose sense of what is reasonable

Technically is not an addictive substance in the true sense of the word but he is dependent on it at the moment for managing his feelings

I think you need to send him away somewhere.

Move house away from negative influences??

@Mullaghanish that would mean selling our home, moving from the city we love, and what guarantee is there that he wouldn't make his way back anyway? It's an option I've considered though for sure though, I just want to protect him - but I think we'd have to move to a remote island somewhere!

How is he funding his habit?

I'd really do whatever you can to get him off that awful stuff. Can school or the police intervene?
My brother started socially smoking it at 14 and I tried to warn him. "It's just a plant, it chillls me out. What's the harm" was his mentality. By 16 he was in the foster care system and his family relationships collapsed. At 18 he was homeless on the street, selling himself for money. The same year he ended up with drug induced psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia. The police found him shouting at cars on the motorway. He was sectioned. Fast forward 6 years and he's under his fourth section and has been in a mental health hospital for 3 years straight! He was at one point placed into a psychiatric intensive car unit PICU and needed 4 staff monitoring him at all times. They've managed to get him clean by force but mentally weed still has a hold over him. I know when he does one day get released he'll be straight back on it. It hurts but he's too far down the line now for us to be able to do anything. Please save your son before it gets any further. Some people don't take weed seriously. But this illegal stuff they're consuming is full of crap. Plus it's a gateway drug. Is there an alternative friendship group you could direct him too? Is there a local drug addict centre you could take him to so that he can see the effects on other people?

This is so hard as the above poster has described such a horrible story of her brother and uour head is obviously going to worst case scenarios like that. Can I share an alternative? I started smoking weed when I was around 17 or 18 and from then on all through uni I pretty much smoked every day. I still smoke now. Not much, a quarter of a weak joint a night before bed (I’m 42). It’s never caused any of the above for me, no gateway drug (had coke a handful of times in my 20s but barely enough to mention), no mental health issues, no bad crowds or crime related activities. I’d say the equivalent would be how most people try alcohol about that age and continue to drink all throughout adult hood in moderation with no issues. It must be scary and it’s understandable that all you want to do is stop it in case It spirals, I’d probably feel the same if it was my kids despite what I’ve written above. However, it isn’t a guarantee it will end in disaster so I’d take the advice you’ve been given around being gentle about how you talk about his friends and keeping a close eye on him without pushing him away. Most important thing at the moment is giving him the support he needs over losing his friend.

@ayegazumba
There is more risk of psychosis to teenage boys whose brains are still developing. Particularly bad if they have ADHD I believe.

With all due respect you sound like you are addicted to weed to me if you are having a joint every night. You are dependent on it.

OP - are the younger kids involved in county lines at all do you think?

@PieceofpurpleskyI’m having one quarter of one per night. It’s a habit not an addiction. Might not be the best or healthiest habit but millions do the equivalent or more with alcohol and I’d argue alcohol is so much worse.

Habit. Addiction. Either - you are still dependent on one per day. Could you stop today?

Well alcohol doesnt require you to break the law or engage in a heirachy of exploitation, usually of children.

You said that you had coke a few times, lucky you that you didnt get hooked very quickly. You said that you werent involved in criminal activities, you are involved in criminal activities.

Weed is not a gateway drug

It depends what you mean by that

If you mean by smoking/taking cannabis it doesnt lead you to physically or emotionally want something else, experiment with other things. That is true

But the environment and network that most young people need to mix in and engage in to get it and manage payments for it, brings them into contact with deals and offers and swaps and people whose interest it is in to get them onto more expensive and harder stuff. So yes, the criminality and exploitation that young people have to engage in in order to get it, means other substances are open and available to them and kids being kids are likely to want to try or do this because they owe that or want to fit in.

And it’s highly likely that the suicide was linked to drug use