I think this teacher should take this as an opportunity to examine what it is he, and the institution he works for is offering these students as an alternative, and consider the students are making rational choices that serve them better.
We know from the Rat Park study that rats in an enriched environment full of positive social engagement and freedom do not choose morphine. [1]
If the students are choosing drugs, it's because they are trapped in a bare metal cage.
For high achievers the do good in high school so you can go to a good college so you can get a good job track can be financially rewarding, but it is also stressful, often leads to burn out and depression and at the end a kind of existential malaise.
For average students this track means bleak economic prospects, low status, a boring monotony with high student loan debt burden.
Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds.
If his students are rejecting society's plan for them and choosing another, perhaps he should examine what it is he is offering. The conclusion often made from his sentiment is a reflexive authoritarian prohibition.
I know many high achieving friends that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to start lucrative tech careers, and started businesses that are building the future.
I know many other average students that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to live rewarding ski-bum lifestyles funded by bar tending, waiting tables, and small scale real estate investment.
The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way.
"Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds."
Do you have any stats to back this up besides anecdotal evidence?
"The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way."
This may be the case, but MJ use at an early age is pretty much known by the medical community to cause issues that will directly effect learning. I'm not sure why, if we are a community about learning, we should be encouraging this and spreading outright propaganda.
There may be people that are successful after smoking MJ for years at a time, but everyone that I know that smoked in highschool regularly never really accomplished anything and many are still in the same place (no career, always trying to make ends meet, barely an education).
Here is a good link on teen drug use and the effect on learning:
I'm not encouraging teenage drug use. I'm pointing out how intellectually, emotionally and economically harmful modern high school is for young people.
Before and during alcohol prohibition, demonizing alcohol was the only way that society had to talk about the problem of domestic violence, because society could not address the problem directly. So alcohol was made the scapegoat.
I believe that we currently use drug use in teens as a similar scapegoat, because we can't talk about the reasons teenagers are in distress.
In my opinion the way we do modern education in its current form is harmful to young people. If it wasn't we wouldn't see such high rates of anxiety, depression and ADHD.
Frankly I'm very skeptical about the idea that people don't use drugs when fulfilled. There's always stress in modern life, and drugs are always attractive at some level
Yes, but it is much easier to do them responsibly if you have other rewarding activities to look forward to.
I, for example, spent almost six months high a couple of years ago and loved it. I stopped because the hippies I was working for ran out of money. I was about an inch away from homelessness before I managed to get a job as a software developer. I was sober at work, but I'd get fucked up as soon as I got home, later with friends, &c. Now that I'm working on my own startup my drug usage has declined even more. I still get high when I have the chance, but I have other highly stimulating activities to spend my time on now.
I wouldn't recommend my life choices to anyone else, but there are ways to responsibly partake of excess.
It's not just about dealing with stress. Some drugs offer transcendence, others escape, some enhanced creativity, or the potential to learn more about yourself or the world around you, or a greater bonding with people you love, or greater tolerance, understanding, and empathy, yet others are self-destructive.
A lot depends on who the user is, what assumptions, pre-conceptions, and goals they have, how and where they use the drug, and which drug it is.
Sure, some may use a drug for stress relief or to party, but others use them to expand their mind.
Unfortunately, escapist, ignorant, and self-destructive uses are all too common in modern societies. It doesn't have to be that way.
We know from the Rat Park study that rats in an enriched environment full of positive social engagement and freedom do not choose morphine. [1]
If the students are choosing drugs, it's because they are trapped in a bare metal cage.
For high achievers the do good in high school so you can go to a good college so you can get a good job track can be financially rewarding, but it is also stressful, often leads to burn out and depression and at the end a kind of existential malaise.
For average students this track means bleak economic prospects, low status, a boring monotony with high student loan debt burden.
Cannabis based friendships while in high school form extremely tight, rewarding social bonds. With a shared group identity and shared activities. Going to a concert and getting 'so high' can be an extremely life affirming peak experience that strengthens social bonds.
If his students are rejecting society's plan for them and choosing another, perhaps he should examine what it is he is offering. The conclusion often made from his sentiment is a reflexive authoritarian prohibition.
I know many high achieving friends that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to start lucrative tech careers, and started businesses that are building the future.
I know many other average students that rejected society's plan, got high, had fun and went on to live rewarding ski-bum lifestyles funded by bar tending, waiting tables, and small scale real estate investment.
The people with their boot on your face don't have your best interests at heart. Believe in yourself, and find your own way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park