A reader writes: I'm going to be blunt and I know there are a lot of people in this situation. My spouse has decided that it's okay to do his marijuana in our home. I am a non-smoker of all sorts and I feel that he's not leaving me and my children or any of our lungs (I have a chronic respiratory condition) a choice when he's ignorantly doing this. Plus, the odour gets into absolutely everything. I've tried telling him that this makes me feel that my opinion is worthless. I have printed out the reports in the papers showing him the effects of his pot smoking and what it can do to his body. I think it's more of an I-am-a-man-this-is-my-house kind of situation. Other than changing the locks and kicking him out, what can I do to fix this? I respect that he made his choice to indulge in this habit. I just don't want to be a part of it.
Answer: First off, I have to say, I thought I had you all figured out, and then I came to your line about respecting "his choice to indulge in this habit." It reminded me of one of my favourite movies, Leaving Las Vegas, in which Elizabeth Shue's character stands by Nic Cage's wish to binge drink himself into oblivion. She even goes so far as to use tequila in poolside foreplay. I thought it was kind of sweet that she allowed him to follow his own path. Of course, he does die in the end, so maybe that wasn't supposed to be the take-home message. And, although my memory is clouded by the
aforementioned scene, I believe she does get really upset with him at one point. Like you, she is obviously conflicted. So let's unravel this, starting with the health issue.
When it comes to the health detriments and/or benefits of marijuana, there's always been a thick wall of smoke dividing those on the pro side and those on the con. Pamela Stewart, a psychiatrist who works at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, says your concerns about your chronic condition and your children's pink lungs are founded. "The problem is the tar," she explains. "It's a respiratory contaminant, and raises your risk for a respiratory disorder." She adds that cannabis these days is 20 to 400 times more potent than it was back in the day and is therefore more addictive and the withdrawal is worse. If that weren't enough, she says that kids whose
parents smoke are more likely to take it up themselves and that "cannabis introduced early in adolescence is a risk factor for schizophrenia." How's that for a good whack of ammo against your hubby?
Of course, Marc Emery, the editor of Cannabis Culture magazine, published out of Vancouver, has a different point of view. He says that the tar created when you burn the cannabis plant is "cleaned out" by the THC, the psychoactive chemical in pot that makes you high. "The tar never accumulates on the lungs," he assures us. "Otherwise, you'd see people like me, after 30 years of smoking cannabis - unfiltered cannabis, bong hits of cannabis and many, many joints - with lungs considerably coated with tar." And, he concludes, "There's no actual incidence of any single individual who smoked just cannabis ever getting lung or respiratory cancer." That last line makes me chuckle a little, because it is exactly the kind of unilateral - and slightly defensive - statement I remember kids making back in high school when parents or teachers discovered their stash.
