My mom read an article on AddictionResource on alcohol and drug abuse in college and started worrying: it turns out “marijuana use among college students keeps rising, reaching 39% in 2016, the highest it has been in decades”. That’s why she keeps asking me how I spend my free time, what I do at parties and ask me to call her when I return home. How to convince her that I don’t smoke weed or use drugs if she never believes me?
Use is different from abuse.
How to convince your mother really depends on her and your relationship with her. But it’s worth pointing out that 39% is a minority, and what that functionally means is that most college students (61%) DON’T use marijuana.
It is normal for parents to get worried, but as a good kid, you honestly need to promise her that you won’t do drugs. Part of college life is going to a party and socializing with different types of people you just need to have a limit.
Tell your mother that, she can either choose to trust you or not. If she trusts you, she should accept what you say, and leave it at that. If she does not trust you, and refuses to believe anything you say, what is the point of asking?
BTW, if she thinks that the situation among college students is “bad”, she should realize that college age kids who are not in college use and abuse all drugs more than college kids do. You can tell your mother that, according to “Monitoring the Future, national survey results on drug use, 1975-2017: Volume II, college students & adults 19-55”, the source of the data that she read, the prevalence of marijuana use among people of your age who are NOT in college is higher than among college kids. While 38% of college kids have smoked marijuana, 43% of college age kids who are not in college have smoked marijuana.
You have two posts on CC. The one that started this thread & one that views vaping as an okay practice for students.
@Publisher - that is an important piece of information. Does this mean OP vapes? Or hangs with others who do? If OP’s mother suspects OP is vaping, is it such a leap to think that marijuana use isn’t also a possibility, especially when several states have legalized it? Parents’ minds go in a lot of crazy and not so crazy directions when their children are away.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I think @Publisher was really questioning the veracity, or at least the point, of the OP’s posts. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into it.
Regardless, I am questioning, and since this seems to be a hit-and-run posting, I am closing.