Last month, Colorado passed House Bill 1373, which requires parents to be allowed to bring their children medical cannabis even while in school.
However, this bill will still allow schools to have a lot of control over how they manage their medical cannabis programs. Schools are allowed to write their own policies in terms of where students can medicate, and what forms of cannabis they can use. If a school fails to come up with a policy, parents and caregivers will be allowed to bring whatever medication they see fit to anywhere on school property.
The bill passed with a strong majority, 10-3, in the House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee.
“It forces a conversation,” explained Rep. Jonathan Singer, a Democrat from Longmont, Colorado who helped support the bill, “that we were hoping would be a voluntary conversation.”
Singer refers to the fact that this bill comes as a reform to another bill, which was passed last year in Colorado. The bill last year created the capability for schools to implement their own cannabis policies, but no schools took the government up on their offer, so therefore, no students were allowed to imbibe medical marijuana on campus. Now with this new regulation, schools who do not create a policy will have to deal with whatever the parents decide, which should help convince more local districts to get on board.
However, even since the passing of this bill, no schools have created a policy to regulate the medicating. Local schools worry about losing federal funding if they allow federally illegal marijuana on campus. Hopefully, as the laws continue to change nationwide, access to medical cannabis will become easier for patients who are in school.
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