I don't get how this is a thing for Americans. How are you not destroyed by anxiety and paranoia if you go get stoned before having dinner with all your relatives?
You don't need people in your life you don't feel safe around. I know that's emotionally easy for the uninvolved to say (and quite frankly my family's pretty great all things considered) but it's also true.
Oh i feel incredibly safe around my family. They're super supportive. I love them. But they give me anxiety due to other factors. Those things aren't mutually exclusive ha.
I use cannabis daily for several years. You get used to being in public high and it becomes less scary and panic inducing.
When I visit my family I must be fried. I can go on several week long vacations without cannabis but the moment my family is near I must be fried for my own remaining sanity.
Three years ago I got high with my 18 year old nephew at Thanksgiving at my place. We were sitting on the porch, family in the next room. Didn't think at the time I was sitting back to back basically with his grandma.
We came back in and she says oh was that some "good shit" or not?
I can speak to this (Canadian, we have Thanksgiving in October, i get high because parts of my family are hard right Conservatives): If I get stoned for dinner (after preparing dinner), I don't feel like shit when people rag on the food or bring up trash political takes. Being high makes me calmer.
Also I don't care if people know I'm high, so that helps.
If I do stay sober, I have to hear how minorities are ruining the country and be accused of poisoning people by not making a healthy meal... which makes me anxious.
Do you worry that the weed impairs your ability to produce effective counterarguments? Drag wouldn't want to go into a situation like that without being on drag's A game. Thanksgiving can be one of your few chances each year to argue with your relatives, so drag tries very hard to avoid wasting it.