Medical Marijuana Helps Mothers Be ‘More Present Parents’ And Develop ‘Positive Relationships With Their Children,’ Study Finds

New government-funded research out of New Zealand finds that mothers who were able to access medical marijuana reported that cannabis improved their quality of parenting by allowing them to more effectively manage health conditions and tolerate the stress of caring for children.

At the same time, study participants reported persistent obstacles, such as the high cost of legal products and ongoing stigma and legal risks.

The new report, published this week in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, drew from interviews with 15 mothers who used medical cannabis (MC) obtained either through prescriptions, the illicit market or both during the past year. They were asked about use in general, their conversations with children, societal stigma and risks.

“Mothers reported MC as an important facilitator of their ability to positively parent their children,” the study found, “enabling them to manage their own health needs (i.e., anxiety, endometriosis and arthritis).”

Mothers also reported feeling that “managing their health with MC allowed them to be more present parents and better tolerate the stressors of motherhood,” wrote authors at Massey University in Auckland.

The mothers were recruited for the survey from a larger group of 38 participants who were part of a larger project around women’s relationship with medical marijuana. They were interviewed one-on-one either in person or via an online video call.

“Participants felt that being able to manage their physical pain and mental distress with [medical cannabis] meant they were in a better mood and more present.”

Nearly half the mothers who participated (46.6 percent) said they primarily smoked marijuana, while smaller proportions reported using edibles (40 percent), oils (26.6 percent), vaporization (20 percent), tea (6.7 percent) and topicals (6.7 percent).

Most obtained marijuana through the unregulated, illegal market (53.3 percent), while a third of participants (33.3 percent) reported accessing both prescription and illicit products. Only two mothers (13.3 percent) said they used exclusively prescription products.

As a parenting tool, the survey found, “Mothers consumed MC to relieve their physical health symptoms such as spasms, aching, and crams. Without the distraction of pain, they believed they could be more present for their children and attend to their needs.”

“Similarly, mothers with mental health and mood conditions such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress-disorder, and pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder felt MC made them calmer, more relaxed and less overwhelmed,” the report says, “which in turn aided their ability to communicate and better connect with their children.”

“Participants in our study felt that [medical cannabis] is a useful tool to manage the stressors of motherhood and facilitate positive relationships with their children.”

A few said cannabis generally “improved their overall functioning and “ability to meaningfully engage in their lives”

“As a result, they expressed that their kids received better parenting,” the study found, “that is, more ‘happy, funny’ and ’empathetic,’ rather than being ‘grumpy’ [and] prone to ‘snap’ at them.”

Respondents said overwhelmingly said they avoided consumption around their children, sometimes even foregoing medical marijuana use for long periods.

“Despite strong advocacy for MC use while parenting, all participants emphasised responsible consumption, framing this as reserving MC use for the evening or night time after completing their parental duties or when their children had gone to bed,” authors wrote.

As one participant explained, “I’d leave it till the evening so that I didn’t have any tasks to perform, or I didn’t have to worry about being present for the kids. It made me think, ‘am I robbing my kids of quality time with me?’”

Mothers who were single, low-income or had disabilities reported difficulty paying for medical marijuana and, thus, often purchased it from unregulated sources or grew their own.

“It’s the last thing on the budget because as a mum you’re always the last thing on the budget,” one said. “The things that children need come first. Obviously, it’s [illegal cannabis] not as expensive as the prescription, but it’s still quite expensive.”

Another reported only being able to afford medical marijuana “once in the past eight months.”

As for conversation with their kids, the mothers “promoted the normalisation of MC use to their children in three ways,” the study says.

First, they described it as a medicine in the same category as other medications. Second, they emphasized that while society may view cannabis users negatively, the drug offered them therapeutic benefits. And third, “some mothers framed MC as a natural product that has healing properties.”

“All mothers felt hiding their MC consumption would contribute to the stigma and leave room for children to make the wrong assumptions, or miscommunicate about it to others,” the report says.

Participants with young children “were enthusiastic about the prospect of discussing MC with them in the future,” it adds, though others “were more apprehensive about needing to have this conversation as they felt the information may overwhelm their children, or that it was not necessary to disclose more than MC is a medicine.”

“We’ll just be very open with her that there is stigma and that comes from historical reasons and from societal values,” one mother said, “but our family values don’t align with those societal values…and this is the reasons why we’ve made the choices that we have and we’re comfortable with them.”

Aside from social stigma that mothers said they felt, participants also acknowledged legal risks of using medical marijuana—risks that many acknowledged varied by race.

“Several NZ European mothers felt their white race was a privilege that could protect them from harsh treatment or criminality if caught by the police with non-prescription MC,” the report says. “This contrasted with rhetoric from one Māori mother who felt the high costs of prescribed MC prevented Māori from accessing products legally, which meant they were forced into illegal access routes.”

Explained one mother, “White privilege comes in here in that I do think it would be unlikely I would get jail time. If they found it my possession, there’s a little bit of the idea that because of my ethnicity, and my educated vocabulary, I think, conviction would be unlikely.”

Those who weren’t married, meanwhile, “voiced concerns that their identity as single mothers using MC put them at risk of having their children legally removed from their care,” the study says. “Three mothers who were either separated from their children’s fathers or in custody negotiations feared that their MC use would be weaponised against them and used as a reason to suggest they were irresponsible parents. This had served as motivation for two of the mothers to transition from the unregulated market to a legal prescription in the last 12 months.”

Notably, the small sample size and limited demographic representation meant that the findings do not “represent the views of all mothers from different ethnicities, younger age cohorts, and social backgrounds of identities using MC,” authors acknowledged.

Nevertheless, the findings “illustrate the global legalisation of MC as a possible catalyst for shifting attitudes towards cannabis use in parenting, and a trend of women exercising agency in their health using complementary alternative therapies,” the report concludes. “They also highlight the importance of developing guidelines that support discussions with healthcare providers about MC and policies that address barriers for mothers wanting to access legal MC products.”

The women’s stories also “reflected an internal conflict between wanting to empower themselves by using MC and discussing it with their children, but then consuming it after their children went to sleep so as not to expose them to it,” authors added.

The findings from New Zealand contribute to a growing body of research around marijuana and parenting.

Last year, for example, a federally funded study by authors from the University of Tennessee, Ohio State University and San Jose State University found that while most parents said they didn’t consume marijuana while their children were present, those who used cannabis generally reported positive parenting behaviors in the same timeframe that they consumed the drug.

Overall, the findings “reveal a complicated relationship between cannabis use and parenting among a sample of cannabis users,” authors of that study wrote wrote. But the results nevertheless provided “some information on ways parents can engage in harm reduction to support positive parenting.”

Also last year, a separate study found that access to medical marijuana may increase the amount of parenting that people engage in by improving patients’ health.

“Our results suggest that [medical marijuana legalization] can have significant positive impact on the development of children via increased parenting time,” that study concluded, “especially to those under the age of 6, a period characterized by high long-run returns to parental investment.”

The big caveat in those findings, researchers noted, is that the benefits apply only if parents do not misuse cannabis, noting bigger increases in parenting time “for those less likely to abuse marijuana.”

While there’s been limited research exploring the role of marijuana policy on parenting behavior, a 2023 study found that states that legalized medical marijuana saw a nearly 20 percent drop in foster care admissions based on parental drug misuse. Legalizing for adult use, meanwhile, was not associated with any statistically significant change in foster care entries.

Separate 2022 research did identify a meaningful link between adult-use legalization and foster care drug misuse cases, however. In that study, researchers at the University of Mississippi found that recreational legalization was associated with at least a 10 percent decrease in foster care admissions on average, including reductions in placements due to physical abuse, neglect, parental incarceration and misuse of alcohol and other drugs.

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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

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