Proposed School Marijuana Bill Raises Hackles

by Special to the Post 

Reading, writing … and reefer?

According to a news article posted by Chalkbeat Colorado, a bill recently introduced in the Colorado House of Representatives would allow public school students to use medical marijuana on school grounds, on buses, or at school activities — and would require school districts to adopt policies on medical marijuana use.

Under a current state law passed in 2015, districts have the option to allow parents and medical professionals to give students medical marijuana at school. That provision was included in a broader 2015 marijuana bill sponsored by Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, who’s been active on marijuana issues.
Singer is the sole sponsor of House Bill 16-1373, which would take away school district discretion on the issue.

The idea causes heartburn for school districts because of concerns about the burden on school nurses and about the potential loss of federal funds if schools are no longer fully “drug-free” zones. Marijuana use, of course, remains illegal under federal law.

The new bill promises the state would reimburse schools for any lost federal funds. That alone could doom it, given the state’s tight budget situation.
The bill has been assigned to the House Agriculture, Livestock, & Natural Resources Committee, not to House Education nor the chamber’s various health committees.

The previous change in the law, approved last year, allows school children in Colorado who are living with conditions like epilepsy, cerebral palsy and seizures take doses of low-THC medical marijuana.

While marijuana possession and use is legal in Colorado, schools are still drug-free zones — but bill supporters argued medical marijuana should be treated no differently than other medications.

“We allow children to take all sorts of psychotropic medications, whether it’s Ritalin or opiate painkillers, under supervised circumstances. We should do the same here,” Rep. Jonathan Singer said.

Singer, a Democrat, sponsored what became known as “Jack’s Amendment.” The amendment was inspired by 14-year-old Colorado boy Jack Splitt, whose personal nurse was reprimanded at his middle school for putting a medical marijuana patch on Jack’s arm that was prescribed by doctors to help his spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and dystonia. They were told never to return with the patch again.