My husband and I were just have a discussion similar to your essay. He's concerned my son favors vaping weed to help him destress after a long week of working as an EMS.

I think weed is a better self-medication for stress and anxiety than alcohol, which is a depressant. Alcohol will make an angry person less inhibited to act out their anger. Weed will make the angry chill out. The same is true of depression – give a depressed man enough to drink and he'll be "crying in his beer." With weed, he'll be giggling at his bellybutton.

Most of my son's fellow EMS folk tend to be drinkers. IDK if any have a serious problem. However, they regale my son with stories of their weekends getting "shit-faced." My son has used one cartridge of tetrahydrocannabinol in around five months. I'd hardly call that a cause for concern.

In our discussion, I pointed out these details out to my husband. I also suggested he consider that his concern is because all the anti-weed propaganda to which we've always been inundated. And then, I reminded him that we now know most of that propaganda was factually incorrect and/or outright false.

I think the learning curve – or unlearning curve – will be a long time evolving in our society.