My son smokes joints: how it affects him and what to do

What to do if a teenager smokes joints. It is a really frequent consultation, both to family or family doctors, as well as to other Health professionals, and to psychologists and psychotherapists. But people also ask questions on the websites, on social networks, on the street, among friends, other parents…

We can say that the three most frequent responses are trivializing, dramatizing and authoritarian…

The first: “well, it’s not that serious, I also smoke or smoked” (and its derivatives). The second, stage a drama upon learning of it, but without putting measures of care, affection and attention below. The third, mounting or not a drama previously, engage in forbidding, persecuting, punishing, policing…

None of the three forms of response is the most opportune, but before knowing the appropriate way to react, there are a few things that we must know beforehand:

It is a common problem. The consumption of marijuana (the dried cannabis leaf), hashish (the resin of the plant), or similar, is relatively frequent among our adolescents.But we must not dramatize. In fact, extensive Spanish studies, such as ESTUDES, from the Ministry of Health, make it clear that it is consumed (and occasionally) by a minority of adolescents, around 30%.Nor trivialize. It is not worth saying: “Nothing happens, it has no harmful effects.” First, because these data mean that in 2018, 222,000 students in our country began to use cannabis, and of both sexes. Second, because all drugs and pharmaceuticals have harmful effects.

All substances exogenous to the organism, even therapeutic ones, have a harmless or even therapeutic level, and a level of toxicity or intoxication for the organism. With the added drawback that psychoactive substances, such as THC (the fundamental component of marijuana and hashish), have addictive properties that is, they invite repeat use.

Self-deception should be avoided. Trivializing behavior is not appropriate when it is “self-justifying”, to “deceive ourselves” (ourselves or our son). This “self-deception” is the aspect that most stimulates later dependency: it is a relational characteristic that must be especially attentive.

How does hash affect your health?

The psychobiological reality is that the results of the use of hashish or similar, like any other psychoactive drug (including alcohol) are always serious if the use is continued. It is important to know its harmful effects to be able to always communicate them to our son or daughter. But not to discuss them. You have to consider that “it is what it is”. Its effects are indisputable.

Another thing is the therapeutic use of THC, which can occur in very special and limited cases and situations. But the supposedly “recreational” use we have to talk about it with our son, asking him and asking us. The drunkenness of pubescents and adolescents and the “botellones” are also very common. Maybe from our daughter or son.

But each one means a comma or a subcomma, that is, the death of millions of neurons, with the consequent alterations in the consolidation of certain circuits of the central nervous system, which are definitively established in adolescence and post-adolescence.

Today it is known that the effects are different between brief or occasional use and prolonged use. But there are always side effects.

If consumed occasionally

The most proven effects of occasional consumption of these substances are a decreased short-term memory which can lead to learning problems and difficulties in retaining information, disturbances in motor coordination (with an increased risk of accidents if using machines or driving), altered judgment of reality (which can lead to risky sexual or non-sexual behaviors), etc.

If the dose or the continuity of consumption are high

In this case, the main risks are addiction and losses and changes in brain development, especially if use begins at puberty or early adolescence.

are also given consecutive cognitive losses, decreases in academic performance, greater possibility of lung diseases, asthma and cardiovascular diseases, alterations in emotional development, low self-esteem and increased vital and social dissatisfaction.

Also, it is given an increased risk of mental disorders, partly because it facilitates them and partly because already altered psychopathological developments are hidden… For example, very often early psychosis takes longer to diagnose because their mental suffering is hidden behind marijuana.

Which boys or girls are most at risk of starting to consume them?

There is plenty of scientific data on what facilitates chronic cannabis use. The risk factors for this clearly dangerous use are the use of cannabis or tobacco by the mother or father, serious socioeconomic factors (hardships, losses and changes in lifestyle, adversities in childhood…), the serious or persistent relational problems of the young man or woman, alterations, dysfunctions and serious family problems, easy access to cannabis and derivatives, habitual consumption in the family or social environment…

What do I do if I think my son or daughter is smoking joints?

Well, our recommendation can be very clear. We usually summarize it like this: talk to her or him. Initially, in agreement with your partner, have at least one calm and calm conversation with your child. Together or one. Stop it if the situation “gets too heated”.

It is better to continue at another time than to end up shouting and fighting.

The global idea is the one that we usually defend for the care of children and people in a situation of dependency: spend more time with children, enjoying them. Adolescence is an adventure for children, but also for parents. For those, an adventure –or series of adventures–, a trip towards an unknown future. For parents it can also lead to interesting adventures and is the “doctorate of life”.

Neither “collegui”, nor police

​Talk to them, yes, but without becoming a “buddy” or a police officer. How many interesting things can your son teach you, in which you have not fallen and that, without his help or that of his “compas”, you will never be able to know! Concerts, bands, types of music, the Internet, excursions and an endless etcetera. Are you going to miss it? Explore their tastes, attitudes, relationships…

He talks about the singer or public figure he is attracted to, comments on whether he takes drugs and the consequences that they have had in him or in others, without skimping on the details (about overdoses, addictions, miseries…), but without staying alone in them.

Express yes, but no drama

In calm moments you can explain to him that you don’t agree with him smoking joints and explain the dangers of doing so. But not to scare him, but because “it is what it is”. Angry arguments are of little use in these cases. They can even convince you that “there is no one to talk to you.”

Why is she hooked on joints, the weed…?

He or she can best answer that question. First it is convenient, and without useless drama, to ask him how and why he uses that drug. And that means listening to him. For example, does he do it “to try”, out of exploration, out of curiosity…? Based on it, clarify the risks, but without dramatizing or harassing.

It can be an emotional issue

Do you do it because others do it? Really? Is it really like that, or is that a subterfuge or a way to “get out of trouble”, or even what we prefer to hear to deceive ourselves? Ultimately, He is speaking to us about an issue of identity, Who wants/can be.

Perhaps our child is especially vulnerable, lacking in identity, or with a fragility in his way of relating to himself and others? So we will have to ask ourselves why it is vulnerable, what got you there And, consequently, how to help you in your security, self-affirmation, self-esteem…

If your child tells you that he uses “to not think about the problems”, to relieve anger or pain, you can tell him firmly, but not insistently, that drugs only make your underlying problem worse and that means you need help.

It is not easy to guide him, even with the help of friends and colleagues, something that we must look for.

Usually we see it so complicated that we close our eyes or fall into authoritarian attitudes. But There are keys to understand him: Do you know how he sees himself and you? Do you also know how others see you (other relatives, your friends, the parents of your friends, your classmates…)?

You may not consider it dangerous

From the outset, seriously rethink: do you or your partner smoke or have you smoked joints in front of him or have you trivialized its use or have you downplayed it? No dramatization, but You have to admit that this is a mistake. Exploring is one thing and needing, becoming addicted, another.

First Family addictive behaviors must be debanalized: not only with cannabis, but with alcohol, other drugs or gambling… From here on, you and your partner should ask yourself about the emotional climate of the family.

If he is upset, you have to ask yourself how to improve it urgently, with the help of family, friends, friends, or professional help… It is not enough to say “my son smokes joints” and put the problems on him. The problem is usually familiar, especially in this serious or continuous consumption.

Let’s not deceive ourselves because self-deception is also an addiction and the base of all addictions.

Do you see in your son or daughter significant inhibitions in the development of their desire, their eroticism or their tendencies to bond with others?

What is really worrying is if your son or daughter only establishes relationships through joints and with people who smoke joints or if they need them to be able to behave spontaneously or freely in society. Have you always presented difficulties in the face of separations or tendencies to isolation? These are two clear risk factors for addictions.

And if you need it to calm down?

That could explain his behavior: he already needs it to sleep, to be able to endure a meeting, a meeting, class with less tension… If this happens continuously or frequently, you are probably experiencing significant relationship difficulties and there is or may be an addiction.

You should check that situation now.

Not with specialists in brain biology or psychiatric classification, but with with a relationship specialist: an adolescent psychotherapist.

but whatever a psychotherapist of whom we know his training, his supervision, the evolution of other cases that he has brought… Not because he is the neighbor, the son of, a friend, the closest or the easiest to consult…

The solutions that an expert will propose They have a lot to do with the environments and media around you: in your region, city, autonomous community… You have to know about the subject.

Today there are large differences between autonomous communities in these…