School nurses in Colorado will be allowed to administer cannabis treatments to students — as long as the student has a medical marijuana card, a note from a doctor and permission from a parent. The new law, signed earlier this week by Gov. John Hickenlooper, gives young patients the ability to medicate without fear of punishment.
Parents must supply non-smokeable cannabis to the school, where the law mandates it be kept in a locked storage facility. School nurses will be trained in administering the medicine to students who have passed the criteria.
Colorado law already permitted parents to give their children medical marijuana at school, typically for treating seizures. But now parents won’t be required to be at the school. Hickenlooper said he signed the bill after speaking with parents struggling to balance their work life and taking care of their children.
According to a report in the Denver Post:
Under the law, students receiving medical marijuana at school cannot carry the medicine to the nurse’s office or bring it on a school bus.
The governor, in a letter, said he signed House Bill 1286 because of the protections to ensure medical marijuana would not “end up in the hands of other students.”
Hickenlooper also said he consulted parents whose children receive medical marijuana and found their “reasoning and advocacy very compelling.”
The law does not require school staff to administer doses of medical marijuana, only giving them permission.
“In evaluating this bill, we spoke to parents whose children are medical marijuana patients,” Hickenlooper wrote in a letter announcing the law. “We find their reasoning and advocacy very compelling, especially that of Ms. Hannah Lovato and her son Quintin who inspired the bill.”
The law, House Bill 18-1286, is known in Colorado as the “Quintin Amendment,” after third-grader Lovato, who suffers from epilepsy and Tourette’s syndrome. Quintin’s parents discovered that three daily doses of CBD oil helped keep Quintins symptoms in check. Quintin received the CBD treatment from his parents each morning and evening, but the midday dose became problematic.
“[The new law] going to help everyone,” Quintin’s mother, Hannah, told Summit Daily. “Not just Quintin.”
