The Erowid Families & Psychoactives project is an attempt to create and collect resources, links, and documents around the topic of children and families in relationship to psychoactive substances. A major focus of the project is to collect stories of families who have attempted to directly address the complex issues of psychoactive substance. Another focus is to archive first hand stories of how specific family contexts influenced individual decisions around how to relate to psychoactives.

There are few topics that are as controversial and emotionally complex as the topic of kids and psychoactive drugs. The issue simmers deep within the American psyche and forms one of the foundation pillars of the War on Drugs. Nobody wants children to be hurt by drug use, but the subject is so taboo that people who teach youth about safer drug use, or who help their child have a positive first experience, are viewed by many as criminally irresponsible.

Many parents and children have no real context within which to discuss drug use. Even if a parent came of age in the sixties and they experimented with drugs, it is not guaranteed that they will be accepting of their childrens' experimentation. This is not necessarily a matter of hypocrisy, there are real risks and dangers which need to be faced. Parents and children should talk about drug use, but our culture has not supported a real dialog.

It isn't really clear how humans in our culture can integrate psychoactives usefully and coherently into our lives with our children. There are so many complexities: legal, social, dependency & abuse, access, addictiveness, fears, personal freedom, parental responsibility, etc., and so few resources available for engaging the subject. In order to lay the groundwork for humans to have better, more balanced relationships with powerful psychoactives, first we can simply try to collect the experiences of people who have already faced these challenges. Most of these stories aren't being told. While we have more information about what happens in traditional cultures, the United States in the 21st century is so removed from family-oriented villages, it is not at all clear what to do with their wisdom teachings.

With this Vault we are hoping to cover the following topics: Families Who Value Psychedelics Coming Out of the Psychedelic Closet Mentoring and Rites of Passage Families Torn Apart: When Dialog Breaks Down Pregnancy, Birth and Breastfeeding Drug Education Other stories of how drugs or the discussion of drugs have impacted a family Media treatment of these issues

Please submit reports via our experience report submission page.
Other articles, ideas and comments can be sent to families@erowid.org.