Colorado student needs marijuana at school

A Colorado Springs school district student, who is prescribed medical marijuana for an extremely rare neurological disease, is not allowed to keep or take his medication while at school. The state of Colorado prohibits people from possessing or ingesting medical marijuana on school grounds. Because of this, the student actually transferred to a new high school earlier this year, one that was closer to his house so he could walk home to take his medication.

Life is even more difficult for the boy because he only takes his medical marijuana pills or lozenges after a seizure starts. Which means, instead of having the school nurse keeping his medication under lock and key, he has to walk home to get his medicine while enduring a seizure.

The school district has told the media that the boy is free to return to school after going home to take his medication, but the boy’s father, Shan Moore, says otherwise. He claims that the school nurse called the boy’s grandmother earlier this month and told her that the boy could not come back to school on any day that he has taken his medication.

“The district has been very unprofessional in their dealings with us,” said Moore in an article published by the Colorado Independent. “Throughout this whole ordeal we have been very careful to follow the letter of what the district tells us to do. Right now, we are operating under the instruction that he is not to go to school on the days he has taken his medicine,” Moore said.

While the Colorado Springs student is forced to walk home in the midst of a seizure to take his medicine and can’t go back to school after, countless other students are taking their medications without issue in school or before going to school.

In the case of the Colorado Springs student, it was a lozenge or pill that he was taking, which only has enough THC, or Tetrahydrocannabinol, to relax his body so the convulsions from his seizures weaken and end quicker. On days when his son has a bad attack, Moore says, “higher doses are needed and his son won’t go to school.”

All this boy wants to do is go to school. Denying his right to an education without jeopardizing his health and life is just wrong. Especially when kids go to school on amphetamines every day and nobody says a word.