I have not had the (much desired) opportunity to bring my own children into the world yet, however here is how I currently plan to go about this topic (assuming society at large does not become more open/tolerant of the subject).

1. Never use them, or be under their influence, while around my child.

2. Refrain from discussing or mentioning the subject until the are old enough to understand the importance of privacy, and to understand the social taboos related to their usage.

3. When the time comes, most likely about the same time DARE starts their propaganda or if they're not ready under #2, after that point, I'll discuss what I expect of them and my views.

My views should be pretty obvious considering my presence here.

My expectations I will hold them too however, is that just like Alcohol and Tobacco, they should refrain from experimenting until they are mature enough to make the decision to do so. I'd expect their age to be between 16 to 21 depending on their mental/emotional maturity.

I have the hope they will respect me for being honest with them and not hypocritical since I never did anything until I was 19, and due to that respect will adhere to my request to wait until they're of age (maturity).

However, I know preventing them from experimenting anyways is not really possible so I also will make the point clear that I know this. I won't support or condone it, but I'll inform them I won't punish it either, in hopes they will have no fear in asking me any questions they may have so they can make safe choices.

I don't want my child relying on rumor/myth/misinformation when it comes to choices that could severely affect their lives, when they can ask me.

Hypothetically to illustrate, were they to contact me asking if it's safe to mix two substances, or asking what the recreational dosage ranges are, I will remind them I don't support it (if I don't believe they're ready), but I will answer the questions honestly.

Don't say "Just Say No".

When I was somewhere around 15 i had asked a close friend of my dads what he was taking. I had seen him crushing something up with a spoon then putting in his mouth followed by a beer. It was morphine. He asked if I would ever consider taking it. i said maybe. He said well how about i show you the right way now so that way you know how to properly do it. He told me he didnt think i should take pills and there was real danger when doing so, but If i was curious he would show me the proper way. He also told me about danger dose levels and such. Told me what not to do, alcohol and pills ect.

So I did and was extremely high for around 12 hours. I didn't take any pills to get high for a very long time after that. Mostly because it never really came up. My father was also extremely open to me at a young age (13), he told me he didn't want to keep secrets from me and that by him being truthful he expected me to do the same.

Now two things happened because of my dads "truthfulness".

1. I was introduced to the drug world earlier than I would have been

2. I wasn't very scared to try certain things, but at first avoided hard drugs, then had tried harder drugs later in life. I do not have an addictive personality. Cigarettes and Pills are the closest I have come to being an addict. I no longer smoke or take pills, and the pill taking was more like social drinking, and occasionally more. But it never became a problem or caused anything, except for a lighter wallet.

In my experience, this is an extremely fine line to walk.

If you tell your kids to "say no to drugs" they will be misinformed and will cause an unnecessary fear of ALL drugs. Which can still lead to drug use, more importantly UN-EDUCATED drug use.

If you educate your kids on drugs, and are truthful to them about your drug use you can decrease their uneducated drug use, hopefully, but this can also subject them to seek out, often unknowingly, friends who are also educated in the use of drugs. And these friends would most likely be drug users themselves. In turn throwing your child into drug use much earlier than they would have foudn on their own.

Now this all depends on multiple things. All kids are different. Some kids will decide to wait. Some kids are curious and would try it and not tell you.

The biggest problem is the outside influence. If this world were run correctly then your children would receive the correct knowledge on drugs from everyone that has a hand in their learning and experiences. Your kids WILL be subjected to the influence of children who do not have intelligent parents that also do not share your view on things and are causing their own children to have to find the truth out for themselves. This complicates things. You also cannot choose your childs friends.

The most important lesson i learned from my father when it comes to friends was this.

You are your friends. If your friends have no goals, no drive, no ambition. Either will you. Choose friends that are going to succeed and you will succeed as well.

Now this is only partly true, but if your friends are making bad choices it definitely has an effect on you. And if most the people around you are not success driven its more difficult for you to be.

Someone I knew many years ago was in the NAC, his mother gave him the medicine (peyote) many times as a child, although their approach is distinct from that of typical modern users of psychedelics and they often do not report having a full blown experience.

He used it many times but did not report ever feeling "high" or "tripping"
I guess this might not count as psychedelic because of that.

If there is a drug that should be avoided taking around children, it is alcohol.

On the contrary, a parent with responsibly drinking habits is most likely the best education re alcohol that a child may get.

what exactly would you consider responsible drinking habits?

In my opinion that statement is a conundrum. Due to the fact that alcohol has no benefits whatsoever, and is very damaging to the body. Light drinking may not have any outside effects but is still damaging to the body.

Besides, a child isn't going to know what is responsible using habits until they see irresponsible using habits. And in most cases if that child decides to drink its usually in the irresponsible manner and the fact that the parents drank was probably a gateway to that child trying alcohol their first time. IMO

it isn't hard for kids to see irresponsible drinking habits.

they see me drink a beer every once in awhile. I appreciate the light lift in mood and thats about all. They also saw Mr jimmie drink so much he fell into a pond. They were VERY embarrassed for him... almost borderline horrified at his loss of control, etc.

Well, that's too biased an opinion. My stance sees alcohol as the ultimate top-notch crème de la crème entheogen - go figure, but that's how things work some people. Alcoholic beverages do also have a lot of health benefits (see there for a comprehensive account) - it's all a matter of balance and I acknowledge that with alcohol it's difficult to find this fine balance.

Since however I feel that discussing about alcohol polarises people too much and derails this topic we'd better stop it here - me, myself will not respond to any counter-arguments to my post re alcohol in this thread - please if you feel it's interesting enough let's start a new thread and continue the discussion there!

I am not a parent and never will be.

I had a tremendous desire to alter my consciousness at a young age, and it would have been really helpful if my parents were supportive of this, but they weren't. My desires were demonized, and I left without looking back to seek what I felt was right @ 17. It took me many years to get back in touch with my parents and be on good terms with them, their version of raising a good boy just ended up driving me further away from them. It's funny how that works out. I tried very hard not to be biased or let it get to me, but seeing my moms tequila habit just sickened me and it took me very long to simply accept this. Was definitely a contributing factor to me quitting this substance for the rest of my life.

With that said I have no regrets, I know there was no other way, and don't blame them for any of their decisions. Cause and effect. Just wanted to share my story of a psychedelic person being raised by non psychedelic parents.

Can you prove it? It has been shown that a daily intake of a small quantity of alcohol can lower the risk of hart problems and diabetes, especially in the elders.

I dont love alcohol, but Im always a bit suspicious when people dismiss it. It seems that they relate it too much to its role in western society.

The amount your talking about is so small that it's easily distinguishable from bad drinking habits. I never saw anything bad happen from my parents drinking. It seemed normal to me. My grandparents had a bar in their basement and my family would get together and drink quite often. It wasn't till later in my life I realized that they were all alcoholics and drive drunk quite often. Now they werent so drunk that it was extremely dangerous but they would have gotten a DUI if tey had been pulled over.

My childhood, my first 6 years, seemed extremely normal and like a tv show. Like the Brady bunch. I knew about my dads very large marijuana grow operation but didn't know what it was. I had stoners all around me all the time. It wasn't till my later years after my parents divorce did it start to have a negative impact on my life.

Yes my opinions are biased. Everyone's are. But basically you either drink a small drink once a day for health or you drink socially which is not healthy. Period

I don't feel that I am getting off topic because it all boils down to what your kids see and how it effects them. My belief is that it depends more on the outside influences then yours as a parent. So you should be looking mostly at what type of kids yours are going to be around and who their parents are and schools and such. That's my 2 cents

What a great thread, and a topic that I think about often. Especially now that I'm entering into the 'may be a parent someday phase'.

I have to relate my own personal experience growing up. I went through the early years of DARE, and all that. At 15 I was caught with a pipe that I was genuinely holding for a friend. My parents sat me down and discussed the gravity of the situation.

At 18 I had actually started smoking marijuana. My Dad, completely out of the blue, offered to smoke with me. We were standing around, me smoking a cig, and he said "Man, if you had something stronger in that thing I'd smoke it with ya". A week later, we went hiking together(as we did all of our lives), and smoked a good bundle.

Over the course of the hike, he explained to me all of the reasons why he kept his usage hidden from us kids. He explained the extreme propaganda associated with 'drugs', and the fact that if we knew, we might have slipped up and told someone. He told me how he was under the influence of mushrooms when I was conceived and how he felt a little guilty about that. He expressed perfectly how he felt great shame hiding it from us.

But the shame and the guilt was worth keeping the family together.

At 18 I was much more able to process his message. I felt such great compassion for that man. I started to remember all the times he would power hike away from me and smoke a J, and then talk to me about philosophy for hours on those trails. Of course I didn't know what was going on at the time.

I've become an accomplished psychonaut since that time and I've re-introduced this old man to the wonderful world of entheogens. A couple years ago I won some tickets to a Gov't Mule show and we went together eating a gram or so of mushrooms(that I grew) each. During the peak he just looked at me and gave me the biggest hug I've ever had from him. I'll cherish that moment forever, and will always thank him for the careful and meticulous work he put into making me who I am.

I guess my point in all of this is, that yeah, you might have to dial back the usage a little bit for your children. Why not? They're so worth it. But you will be able to dial it back up again in a few years and the feeling will be so much greater. You might even be able to share a moment of infinity with your manifested genes.

^^ perfect

I am not anti-alcohol, I just mean that in terms of problems, losing control, endangering self and children etc that psychedelics are doubtlessly better than alcohol.

It is kind of close to home for me having seen peoples lives changed for the better, including in terms of parenting, from psychedelics, and having seen a lot of problems, including health problems come from use of alcohol.

Also in terms of use overdose and withdrawls from alcohol can prove fatal, but not so with psychedelics. I am a parent and as a parent I would be far more concerned with my children drinking than I would be with them using psychedelics, but things can go wrong with both.

I agree that the debate of alcohol verses psychedelics is not a good direction for this thread. I just feel like it was put out there that it might be bad to trip around kids and I wanted to say that I feel like it is worse to be drunk around children than to trip around them. I have a lot of friends whose parents abused alcohol and abused their kids, both physically and sexually, when they were drunk, and I have a lot of friends whose parents used psychedelics and nothing of the sort happened, rather the opposite.

I will note that in my opinion psychedelics do impair judgement too, just in a totally different way, people get delusional on psychedelics and at very high doses can have trouble telling fantasy from reality. The judgement problems associated with alcohol are totally different than that.

I've spoken with my oldest about cognitive freedom and ethics of drug use, never saying anything about my own experiences.

Alex Grey is a parent, a psychedelic parent at that, so to speak. Great example.

Ya I'm not anti alcohol either. I just meant that IMO alcohol is abused way more than kinda anything. Well pills and tobacco are atleast right there. Anyways, the last two posts I feel are great.

Delphiex: your story touched me. Especially the part where your dad hugged you. That was hardcore man!

Everything impairs your judgement wouldn't you guys agree? I dont think any of us would use anything that impaired our judgement enough to become dangerous around kids. If you get too stoned or drunk it's not a good idea to be in charge of caring for children. And definitely not any psychedelics. But if you had a babysitter and went somewhere with the wifey it could be possible to use shrooms or the like.

It's too bad we have to worry so much about the legality. Imagine if they were legal. Such an amazing world this would be!

Delphi ex: beautiful... Thanks for sharing that.

I dont think it's inappropriate to talk about alcohol here. It's ubiquitous in our culture, and it's a potent drug, so let's talk about it. I grew up in a home with a pair of very light drinkers. My folks have a decades-long habit of sharing a bottle of wine over the course of 3 hours or so, several nights a week. I never heard either of them slur, and they always drove sober. I never had any kind of talk with them about alcohol as a kid (as an adult, I love sharing wine with my folks- there is really no chance of getting my dad to trip with me, so I'll take what I can get). I think the bottom line, though, is that if I did come to them with questions about drinking, they were actually in a position to talk honestly about the difference between responsible and irresponsible drinking.

Personally, given the choice, I prefer the herbal alternative.