A bill regarding children and cannabis was passed Monday and is on its way to California Governor Jerry Brown. It would allow some youth with certain medical conditions to be administered cannabis on campus, as long as it’s given to them by their parents.
In California, the law has allowed medical use somewhat since medicinal marijuana was barely a thing, but parents had to meet the child off premises or take them out of school in order to administer the medication. This new bill has its strict points, too, though.
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The cannabis must be in non-smokable or vapable form, so it has to be a tincture, oil, capsule or other infusion to be utilized on campus and, naturally, the kid needs to have a medical marijuana script in order to take it. A bit of rub is that schools will have the option to participate in the guidelines outlined in the bill or to keep status quo.
The teenager who inspired the bill had up to and over 50 seizures a day before the parents discovered medical marijuana. And in Santa Rosa, a kindergarten age child is allowed, by court order, to bring her cannabis oil with her to school to prevent further seizures caused by a rare disorder.
Cannabis as a medication is becoming more and more normalized as more states topple into the green shade and children with serious disorders are benefitting from it. No person should have to suffer 50 seizures a day, and especially not after a doctor has found and prescribed a medication that works.
The fact that more states and more children aren’t able to medicate and be well still boils down to cannabis being a Schedule I drug at the federal level. Under that definition, the plant is defined as having no medical usages, to be of high potential for abuse and is illegal at the federally.
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State after state is paving its own way with compassionate cannabis laws, but until cannabis is re- or descheduled, there will still be hurdles to jump, bills to pass and laws to change. But that’s what this movement was founded upon. Getting the very sick well, keeping them out of jail and making the forward progress to ensure it happens is at the heart of medical marijuana.
This new bill is a brave one and it sends a message to the powers that be: cannabis is indeed medicine, it’s saving lives from the depths of fear and illness and catapulting them into the healthier, much more comfortable states of being.
