Teens and cannabis: Can you stop them using if that's what they want to do, and if not, how can you best deal with the situation?
Early last year I wrote about the growing number of parents who had contacted me in relation to cannabis. We've recently seen an increase in the use of cannabis (marijuana, weed, grass, ganja, pot) by Australian young people and although we're not anywhere close to the levels of use that we saw in the 1990s, it would appear that something is definitely happening. Getting a call from the school and facing the nightmare of, at best, having a child suspended, or at worst, having them expelled or asking them to be withdrawn, must be earth-shattering, particularly if you didn't see it coming. For most parents, this is a 'one-off' thing - their child do something stupid with their mates, get caught and they won't do it again. Experimentation is a part of adolescence - that doesn't mean it's harmless but it's what some teens will do. Unfortunately, for other parents, this will be the start of a long dark road and it's often really difficult to see the