Justice

Colorado Schools Make a Bold Move on Marijuana

June 9th 2016

Students in Colorado won the right to use medical marijuana in school on Monday.

marijuana-leafStocksy/Heim - stocksy.com

This doesn't mean that students will be allowed to smoke joints in the locker room, of course. It means that those with serious medical conditions such as epilepsy (who are qualified medical marijuana patients in the state) will be allowed to access their medicine, which will be administered with adult supervision, CBS News reports.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed the law — named "Jack's Law" after Jack Splitt, a 14-year-old with dystonia, a neurological movement disorder, whose school previously confiscated his cannabis — on Monday. The law "requires each school district to adopt a policy allowing the medical marijuana use," according to the bill.

"It is important for children to have access to marijuana on school grounds because this is life-saving, life-changing medication," Jack's mother, Stacey Linn, who helped craft and pass Jack's Law, told ATTN:. "These children — some of them were never able to go to school because the pharmaceuticals medicines that they were on were not managing their disease and/or the medicines were causing them more problems and so much sedation and mental dysfunction that they couldn't go to school."

signingCannabis Patients Alliance - facebook.com

"These children have found what practically amounts to a miracle treatment to enable them to go to school," Linn said. "And what do children do? Children go to school. All these children want to do is be with their friends and go to school — they just want to be like other kids, and this allows them to be like other kids."

Though marijuana has been legalized in 25 states for either recreational or medical purposes, Colorado is the first to implement a statewide policy for medical marijuana in schools. Some cities such as Auburn, Maine, have already moved forward with similar policies this year, the Associated Press reports.

Schools have been reluctant to adopt policies that allow students to use medical marijuana because the substance is federally illegal and they feared losing out on federal aid. Hickenlooper introduced a solution to that problem in Jack's Law:

"If the department of education or a public school loses any federal funding as a result of adopting the policy, the general assembly shall appropriate state money sufficient to offset the loss of federal money," the text of the bill reads.

RELATED: What I Learned From Medical Marijuana Refugee Families

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