Up in smoke
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'Mom, did you ever smoke weed?"
It's a question many baby boomer parents dread, since it puts some of us in the awkward position of telling the truth, others in the awkward position of telling a lie. Those who never fired up are exempt from this dilemma, but even they have a problem: lack of credibility on the issue.
Question 2, the ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, passed handily last week. Now, those caught with an ounce or less will be subject only to a $100 fine; juveniles must also complete a drug awareness course and perform community service. Under the old law, offenders could be arrested, jailed, fined, and lose their driver's license. That supposedly "sealed" criminal record has come back to haunt tokers years later, when they apply for scholarships or a job.
A positive byproduct of the cannabis question is that it generated conversations with our teenagers who knew all about the initiative, thanks to a robust television ad campaign. "Did you ever smoke weed, Mom?" or "How are you going to vote, Dad?" became fodder for dinnertime conversation, one that doubtless caused indigestion at many a kitchen table.
Friends who voted to decriminalize tended to tell their kids the truth about their smoking past, tempered with the qualifier, "But I only tried it a couple of times." It seemed that nearly every young person of that era tried it. For many boomers, smoking pot was a rite of passage. It was our generation that invented the bong, laughed through "Reefer Madness," and made midnight runs to the
But when addressing our own children, many of us sound like Cotton Mather warning against witchcraft: Pot is as carcinogenic as tobacco. If you get busted, you'll get a record, and there goes your college app. Getting high impairs judgment. It's bad for your developing brain. And don't you know that today's pot is much more potent than it was 30 years ago? (All true.)
Other parents figure that if they can't serve as a good example they can always serve as a bad one. They tell their kids stories to scare them straight: Yes, I smoked, and I nearly flunked out of college. Or: Marijuana made me listless and paranoid. Or: I gained a ton of weight calling Domino's for delivery. One of my friends jokingly (I think) told her daughters that if she hadn't tried pot she might have been a brain surgeon "instead of a failing small business owner who may soon be applying at Ocean State Job Lot."
Even those boomers who never smoked dope face tough questioning from their kids. One friend found that the truth - she'd never smoked - backfired. "That actually seems to hurt my credibility on the issue with my son," she says. File under: Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Others lie because the truth, they fear, will give their kids tacit permission to light up. As one businessman I know puts it: "What's the value of leveling with your kids only to have them repeatedly throw it back in your face?" Bottom line: We may have smoked the stuff, but we don't want our kids doing it. This doesn't make us hypocrites; it makes us parents.
As for Question 2, my friends were split. Those who voted for the measure think that possession of a small amount should not be a crime. Those who voted against have teenagers they're worried about. After all, our primary weapon with our children has been that it's illegal. "If I now have to tell my son the state has equated pot with a speeding ticket, he will chortle that he was right all along, that it's no big deal," says one mom I know.
But the same reasoning - we're worried about our kids - was also cause to vote for decriminalization. We don't want a criminal record haunting them for years. Just think: If Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had been busted, they wouldn't have been elected to the local sewer board, much less the presidency of the United States.
Bella English can be reached at english@globe.com 
