Parents in the weed-friendly US state of California could be allowed to give medical cannabis to their children on school property from next year.
Governor Gavin Newsom has announced he signed the legislation that throws out a current prohibition on cannabis within 1,000ft of campuses – but school districts will have the final say on whether it goes ahead.
The bill was authored by State Senator Jerry Hill, who named it ‘Jojo’s Act’ for a teenager in the state who uses medical cannabis to treat a boy with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.
California legalised medical marijuana in the 1990s.
Hill said: “Jojo’s Act would lift barriers for students with severe medical disabilities – for whom medicinal cannabis is the only medication that works – so they can take their dose at school and then get on with their studies, without being removed from campus and without disrupting their educational experience or that of their classmates.”
The conditions under which the marijuana is administered within the new law are:
- The student is a qualified patient with a valid written medical recommendation for medicinal cannabis, and that the student’s parent or guardian provide a copy of the recommendation to the school to keep on file.
- The medicinal cannabis is not stored on campus, and typically, medicinal cannabis for children is administered as oil, capsules, tinctures, liquids or topical creams that do not have the psychoactive. The parent or guardian sign in when coming on campus to administer it to a student.
- They must not disrupt the educational environment or expose other students to medicinal cannabis.
