Son taking drugs - How would I know?

lowis

i think you can buy home drug test kits these days, not sure what it involves, whethe you need to do it with his consent or whether you can do it on the sneak...but it would answer your question. might really pi55 him off though!

i thought drug-taking was part and parcel of going out these days? when i was a teenager it was cider and thunderbird wine, but from what i can tell it is now e, speed and coke which seem to be the drugs of choice. i may be wrong, i'm no teenager

Stephb1986_2

markelock wrote: »

if he's taking drugs (and he is) then it's absolutely the OP's business. Both because it's her house, and because it's her son.

if he decides to spend it on fruit pastilles, then fair enough that's up to him.

but not (illegal) drugs.

Well she seems happy enough for him to live under her roof and smoke weed though. Thats a drug! so she allows that but wouldn't allow anything else??

Lunar_Eclipse

It cost £10-20 for one night's weed about 20 years ago, when shared with a few friends, which is usually the case. So that would easily be at least £50 now.

If everything else is normal, which it sounds like it is, I'd simply express my concerns about drugs (not implying that you think he's taking them), reassure him that you love him and are there if he ever needs help. He sounds like he's got his head pretty screwed on to me. I'd have a fit if my Mum had looked at my bank statement when I was 18, thou I agree it should have been put away.

His response to your question re: where the money goes would be quite telling IMO. For instance, a very defensive and highly agitated response might imply you wouldn't like the answer whereas a blaze 'dunno, just spent it' oe would make me think he's frittering it away. Though obviously this is open to a fairly wide margin of error in jumping to conclusions.

You know your son and probably have a gut feel as to whether everything's ok or not.

ExNicotineQueen

You mentioned that your son smokes weed, the money being spent could possibly be solely down to that.

I went through a period of smoking weed about 3 years ago. We (myself and OH) used to get through about half an ounce a week which ranged from £90~£120 depending upon quality and strength. It’s not as simple as just saying weed costs X-amount because there are so many different varieties and choices to suit an individual’s pocket. Sometimes if we knew that there was going to be a shortage, we would 'stockpile' so to speak so spending £300 to last say a fortnight or 3 weeks was not uncommon.

Also from my experience there tended to be lots of ‘unavailable’ periods where if there was none to be sold, that meant anyone who did have any could charge a higher price. Supply and demand as they say.

I was never a true addict, only having 1 or 2 joints a day if that for a short period, however some of the people we knew, they were on it 24-7. And I mean smoking joints as if they were ‘normal’ cigarettes from the time they woke up to the time they went to bed. They could not function without it. The worse thing about weed is the longer you smoke it, the more immune you become to it so every time you smoke and want to recreate that buzz/high, you need more of it. So whereas it might initially have only taken 1 joint to do the trick, over time it becomes two and so on. Not to mention if the potency of the weed you are smoking is of poor quality, you tend to pack out your joints more with weed than tobacco and end up spending more money buying better quality weed because the cheap stuff doesn’t last very long.

I have seen the effects of weed smoking on people long term and it’s not good. One of the reasons I gave up myself was because I didn’t like being so idle/lazy all the time. It made me really complacent and it got to a point where I realised that if I didn’t stop it, I too would end up like some of those people we knew who easily spent £250+ per week on it.

Good luck to you, even if your son is not doing any other drugs apart from weed, if/when he decides to get off it he will need a lot of help as the temptation to be around others who do use it on a regular basis might be too much for him.

Lunar_Eclipse

There has been a fair bit mentioned about serious weed habits, health issues and needing help giving up etc.

I would also like to say that there are many teenagers who simply smoke weed for a period of their lives and it does not define who they are, turn them into lazy slobs or give them long term health issues. Just thought it good to point out that this is not necessarily a big deal.

back2square1

If you really want to know whether your son takes cocaine the check any plastic cards he may have in his wallet ie. bank cards, store cards, etc

If you rub your finger along the longest edge you will have a white residue left on your finger which will be cocaine. Also they use £10 or £20 notes rolled into a tube to snort the cocaine. See if any of his notes are still rolled.

However snooping in your son's wallet or pockets may cause a lot of grief.

Whenever he returns from a night out he will be sniffing quite a bit, he may find it difficult to go to sleep when he gets in, after a day or so he may be very agitated and fly off the handle at the slightest thing.

Mojisola

chocomonsta wrote: »

I recently found my son's bank statement and was shocked to see that in some weeks he has taken out huge amounts £200-300 over a couple of days. He does not have a car, pays me about £200 a month for rent including his mobile phone. He earns about £1000 take home pay and yet it is spent within the first 2 weeks usually.

Whatever else you have to do, put up his rent! He pays you £50 a week for everything, including his mobile phone - and is happy to spend £200 over a few days - does that sound fair to you?

astonsmummy

OMG!!!!!!!!!!
He's 18!
I dont really understand what the big deal is, when I used to work full time before having my son I would literally blow my money on crap and most of the time I had nothing to show for it.
Really, as long as he's giving you your keep then it's up to him what he spends his money on, TBH if he was bang on the drugs, you would not be seeing any of his money.
And smoking weed is not the end of the world, loads of people do it and dont end up psycotic, just like loads of people drink and dont end up as alcoholics.

naturally_2

I would be concerned about the weed - just because "everybody does it" doesn't mean its not harmful.

He's 18 - I don't know many 18 year old who budget, or can account for half of the money they've spent. For all we know he could have bought his girlfriend nice undies with it. I think the best thing for you to do is have a talk to Frank and put your mind at ease if he isn't showing any of the signs. BUT I would challenge and do my d*mn best to stop the weed habit.

astonsmummy

naturally wrote: »

I would be concerned about the weed - just because "everybody does it" doesn't mean its not harmful.

He's 18 - I don't know many 18 year old who budget, or can account for half of the money they've spent. For all we know he could have bought his girlfriend nice undies with it. I think the best thing for you to do is have a talk to Frank and put your mind at ease if he isn't showing any of the signs. BUT I would challenge and do my d*mn best to stop the weed habit.

I never said it wasn't harmful, but come on compared to our legal 'friend' alcohol it's pretty damn safe.