I may have told this story. My daughter was 6 or 7, DARE showed up to tell her that:
1. ALL drugs are bad
2. If your parents use drugs they are bad and should be turned in
3. If they smoke cigarettes they will die NOW
My poor daughter was beside herself, I have never hidden my proclivities from her (well, a little when she was younger), nor did her mother. But now the poor child was certain that I was going to jail and we both were going to die. her mother stormed into the school office and demanded they stopped frightening the children. Fuck, to this day I lose cigar smoking partners because "wel, my daughter won't let me smoke cigars, she is afraid I will die".
So I lectured my daughter about drugs, that the coffee she saw the policeman drinking at the donut shop was a drug, that drugs help people, that sometimes people use them for the wrong purposes and that no drug is "bad". She took it to heart and then one day, when she was about 12 I reversed course, drugs can be misused, many people use them to ill effect, they can be dangerous and harmful - she was confused for a time but finally got it.
She called me when she was 17 or so and asked me if she could smoke pot - she was curious and at a party. I said "no, it is too early, tell your friends that you spoke to your father and he said you would be wiser to wait". She did. She called again at 18 and I told her about the same thing. She called on her 21st birthday and I said "you are an adult, now is as good a time as any, go smoke your brains out" In the background I heard her mother tittering and rejoyciing "Dad says it's OK! let's get rolling".
She went through about a year of smoking and hanging out with pot smoking friends and now smokes only what is given her, and that on very rare occasions. She has a small stash of benzos that her father gave her for airplane trips and the occasional rough patch and she took mushrooms with me once - a museum dose - and we went to a museum.
I believe that if parents actually told the truth to their children, and didn't let society, convince them one way or another, we would all be better off.
. That was scary as fuck reading in front of a huge crowd with cameras pointing at me. Could barely even talk. Unfortunately, my writing skills are probably still at the same level as back then
