A friend alerted me to this article by Mark Wolfe:

‘The youngest of my three daughters was born around the same time I became a card-carrying medical cannabis patient. Even though I was only 44, I’d been suffering from occasional back pain. I also suffered bouts of stress, compounded by anxiety. The causes were unknown, but there seemed to be a correlation with work deadlines and flying coach with three children under the age of 5. Sometimes it got so bad I had trouble falling asleep at night, leaving me groggy and irritable.
So, in 2010, I resolved to seek medical help. I received a thorough physical examination from my CannaMed doctor, who checked not only my pulse but my blood pressure as well. Examining the results, he concluded that I would benefit enormously from a cannabis-based treatment regimen and recommended that I use a brownie-based form of the drug to avoid the lung irritation associated with other modes of dose administration. I soon had in my possession a shiny, state-sanctioned medical marijuana ID card, gaining me free access to the city’s expanding array of quasi-legal cannabis dispensaries.
After two years of treatment, I can state unequivocally that I feel much better about pretty much everything. Sure, my back still hurts, but I’m cool with it.
But the best part is an amazing off-label benefit I call Parental Attention Surplus Syndrome.
Before beginning treatment, I was a dutiful if not particularly enthusiastic father. Workaday parental obligations were a necessary, unfortunate chore. I was so stressed out by the end of the day that bedtime, with its interminable pleas for more stories, songs, sips of water and potty breaks, felt like a labor to be endured and dispatched as quickly as possible.
Here is what a typical weekday evening exchange between me and my oldest daughter once looked like: Child: Daddy, can you show me how to make a Q? Father: (sipping bourbon and soda, not looking up from iPad) Just make a circle and put a little squiggle at the bottom.
Child: No, show me! Father: Sweetie, not now, O.K.? Daddy’s tired.
It’s different now: Child: Daddy, can you show me how to make a Q? Father: (getting down on the floor) Here, I’ll hold your hand while you hold the pen and we’ll make one together. There! We made a Q! Isn’t it fantastic? Child: Thanks, Daddy! Father: Don’t you just love the shape of this pen?’

(Read the complete article here.)

My friend called this “a new low" in parenting.

Perhaps.

But the parents of one of my best friends in high school were potheads.

If you can play with your kids after two glasses of wine you can play with your kids after a joint. At least that’s what I assume. I don’t smoke.

Of course the best thing to do is to invite the nanny first and then take the drugs. No drugs might be even better, but unfortunately being clean is not a guarantee for being a good parent.

And if you want to take your children to a swingers club, wait until they are 21.
Be reasonable, be responsible.