New Calif bill, “Jojo’s Act” will allow students to be given medical marijuana in K-12 schools.
This bill that was previously rejected by the former governor of Calif. has been approved by current Gov. Gavin Newsom on Oct. 9 and will give school districts the option to allow parents to administer medical marijuana to their children during school.
The approval of this bill will reverse a law that bans marijuana, recreational or medicinal within 1000 feet of school campuses. This will allow students who are prescribed the drug easier and quicker access to their medicine while at school or in class.
At first the bill may seem a bit outrageous because of the idea of having any type of marijuana in K-12 is quite taboo, but the bill comes with a list of limitations that schools and parents must follow in order to administer the drug.
According to section 2 of California Senate Bill 223 there are many limitations. This includes rules that state that parents are not allowed to administer their child medical marijuana in a manner that disrupts other students or the educational environment.
Parents must sign into the campus before administering medical marijuana to their child in a non-smoking or vape form such as a pill or oil.
With these limitations in place it would be almost impossible for students to abuse the substance or use it in any other way other than its medicinal purposes.
More schools should be looking to exercise this law for the safety of its children. The Center of Disease Control and Protection estimates that 470,000 children in the U.S. suffer from epilepsy. The National Institute of Drug Abuse reports that epilepsy is a disease that has been known to be treated by cannabinoids.
The FDA has even approved a liquid based CBD medicine to help treat two very common forms of childhood epilepsy, Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut.
CBD and THC are the two main cannabinoids found in the marijuana plant, and affect our bodies in very different ways. THC is the psychoactive element found in marijuana and is what gives people the euphoric high feeling they get when smoking marijuana.
CBD does not cause any psychoactive change to your mind and is usually extracted from cannabis or hemp plants which are just cannabis plants with little to no THC content.
Both CBD and THC can be used to treat various medical symptoms such as seizures, anxiety and nausea.
With the passing of the bill parents and schools can both benefit in knowing that students who rely on medical marijuana can now be administered when needed.
As of now there has been no talks of approving a similar bill for college campuses especially with recreational marijuana being legalized in California. It is a start to raise awareness of the benefits of medical marijuana.
