CHENEY – The school district’s board of directors unanimously passed a new policy to regulate the administering of medical marijuana to children on school grounds.
The measure, adopted at the board’s Oct. 8 meeting, allows only an authorized parent to administer the drug to a child who is also authorized to receive the medication by both a physician and the state’s Department of Health.
The policy requires the drug be administered so that it is private and out of sight of others, not disruptive to the educational process and won’t expose other students to the drug.
The policy is state required, Assistant Superintendent Tom Arlt told the board of directors. Under Substitute House Bill 1095, adopted by the Legislature during its 2019 session, school districts “must” adopt such as policy “upon the request of a parent or guardian of a student who is a qualifying patient.”
Arlt said they had received such a request from a parent and were forced to take up adoption of the guidelines.
Under the policy the district will permit students who meet the state’s statutory requirements for medical marijuana to consume marijuana-infused products for medical purposes on school grounds, a school bus or at a school-sponsored event. The district must verify the parent and student are in compliance with state requirements regarding medical marijuana and can provided the proper documentation to this effect.
No medical marijuana will be stored on school grounds, and while a school nurse may supervise, only the qualified parent may administer the drug. Administration of a marijuana-infused product by smoking is strictly prohibited.
Arlt said the district consulted a number of educational agencies in creating the policy. The district also consulted their legal counsel, who issued a stern warning.
“We cannot defy the law,” Arlt said. “Numerous consultations with our legal counsel have always ended with ‘you cannot defy the law.’”
Earlier in the meeting during citizen comments, Marshall-area resident and Cheney School Board director candidate Bill Johns asked the board to not adopt the policy. Johns made the same statement at the board’s Sept. 25 meeting, citing published harmful effects of marijuana on children, its lack of approval by the Federal Drug Administration and his own experiences with those who used the drug during his service in the Army in the Vietnam War.
At the Oct. 8 meeting, Johns displayed several advertisements for marijuana published in local newspapers as an illustration of how the harmful effects of the drug are being downplayed in favor of making its use more attractive to youth.
Johns’ opponent, incumbent Director Mitch Swenson, told district officials he was not comfortable with the drug being administered on a school bus, noting such a scenario was not private. Arlt said he and others felt this portion of the law was “poorly written,” and the state acknowledges this and is actively discouraging parents from doing so. On the other side of the coin, Arlt said there could be instances where this would happen, and that the parent would attempt to find some sort of privacy.
“In my mind, that might be some out-of-district trip (where this would happen),” Arlt said. “I would think the parent would administer (the drug) in a vehicle of their choice.”
According to the website DocMJ, there are two active chemicals in marijuana: tetrahydrocannabinol or THC and Cannabidiol or CBD. THC is the psychoactive element in marijuana that produces a “high,” while CBD does not generate any psychoactive effects.
Medical marijuana has a higher CBD content, so that when a patient is taking the drug they don’t feel the euphoria that’s associated with its recreational counterpart.
Superintendent Rob Roettger agreed with Johns about the targeting of marijuana ads, but since the district had received a request the law forced them to create a policy.
“We’re not promoting the use of marijuana among students, that’s not what we’re here to do,” Roettger said, adding there are certain medical conditions where marijuana has proven effective in treatment over other drugs.
“That’s the intent of the law,” Roettger said.
In 2018, the FDA approved the use of Epidiolex (cannabidiol) as an oral solution in the treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, two rare and severe forms of epilepsy. The drug was approved for patients age two and older, and was the first FDA-approved drug that contains “a purified drug substance derived from marijuana,” according to a June 25, 2018 news release.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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