The first legal weed generation is growing up. We’re not ready for the questions they’re asking

A strange thing is happening in American families right now.

Kids are growing up in a country where cannabis is legal in most places and barely talked about at home.

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For the first time in U.S. history, the majority of Americans live in states where cannabis is legal in some form. Dispensaries sit next to coffee shops. Cannabis ads appear online and on billboards. Medical marijuana is discussed on the evening news. And yet, in many households, cannabis is still treated like a forbidden word – something adults hope kids won’t notice or won’t ask about.

They do notice. And they do ask.

I see it as a parent, and I see it professionally working in cannabis communications. Kids encounter cannabis long before anyone sits them down to explain it. They hear it at school. They see it on TV. They pick it up through social media, movies, and overheard adult conversations. But what they rarely get is context.

Instead, they absorb confusion.

One adult calls cannabis dangerous. Another calls it medicine. The law says one thing in New Jersey and another in Connecticut. The federal government says something else entirely. To a kid, it all sounds contradictory – and when grown-ups avoid the topic, that contradiction feels even louder.

This generation is the first to grow up inside that contradiction.

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Most of today’s parents came of age when cannabis was illegal everywhere and wrapped in fear-based messaging. The word “marijuana” was tied to crime, addiction, and moral failure. That story didn’t come out of nowhere – it was built over the last century through politics, racism, and sensationalism – but it still shapes how many adults think about the plant today.

Kids, on the other hand, are growing up in a very different world. They see cannabis presented as wellness, medicine, business, and culture. They hear about CBD gummies, medical patients, and legalization votes. They don’t inherit the same automatic fear – but they do inherit the silence.

That’s where the real problem starts.

When parents avoid a topic, kids don’t stop thinking about it. They just start filling in the blanks themselves. Sometimes they do that with misinformation from friends. Sometimes it comes from social media. Sometimes it comes from pop culture. None of it is designed to be accurate, balanced, or age-appropriate.

The irony is that parents don’t need to be cannabis experts to handle this well. What kids are usually asking for isn’t permission or instruction – it’s clarity. They want to know what something is, why people argue about it, and what the rules are for them.

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Cannabis isn’t just a plant. It’s a story. It’s been medicine and religion, crime and politics, business and culture – sometimes all at once. Adults argue about cannabis because they’re carrying different versions of that story, shaped by their own history and experiences.

Kids deserve to hear that.

They deserve to know that cannabis is something adults disagree about, that it can be helpful for some people and harmful for others, that it isn’t for kids, and that laws and science are still changing. That kind of honesty builds trust. Silence builds curiosity without guidance.

The first legal-weed generation is already here. They’re watching. They’re listening. And they’re forming ideas whether adults want them to or not.

The question isn’t whether kids will learn about cannabis.

It’s whether they’ll learn about it from thoughtful conversations – or from confusion.