New legislation aims to allow medical cannabis in Michigan schools
LANSING, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - It is the second attempt at Jayden's Law, a two-bill package introduced by Democrats in the Michigan House that would allow students to use medical cannabis at school.
The bill's sponsors say they want all students to be allowed to take the medicine they need without interrupting academic time.
"What it does is allow medical marijuana pediatric patients to have their medication in the schools the same way anyone else has their medications stored," said state Rep. Jimmie Wilson Jr., a bill sponsor. "The same way, whether it be in a nurse's office or an administration office, they would go up and access their medication the same way anyone else would, and they would go back to class."
The way things work now, a student with access to medical cannabis is checked out of school and taken at least 1,000 feet away from the building to take their dose. The student is then checked back into school.
"It is an inconvenience for students who take this medicine. Most of those students who have autism or have chronic pain or epilepsy have to take time out of the school day, miss instructional hours and go off campus to take medicine, and then come back," said Dylan Wegela, a bill sponsor. "This would simply make their day a lot more cohesive."
According to the bill's language, a student's cannabis would need to be prescribed by a doctor. The cannabis would also need to be "unsmokable."
"This is normally tinctures, pill form, CBD, things of that nature that they will be able to go up into the office, take their medication, and go back to class," said Wilson. "They wouldn't be able to just walk around the school with it."
The bills include a provision that would allow them to opt out of allowing students to take medical marijuana if the federal government challenged the school.
"At that point, the school can opt to not allow this medication to be in their school," Wilson said. "That way, they don't lose any federal funding. We don't anticipate that happening. But we did put that provision because we know that that could have been a concern."
CBS News Detroit reached out to the Michigan Department of Education for comment on this new legislation. We were redirected to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which wrote in an email the legislation had not been assigned to a state department, and MDHHS had not had time to review it.
For Wegela, this legislation's primary goal is to make students' lives easier.
"I was a public school teacher for seven and a half years, and what is incredibly important is that all of our students have the same access to their medicine as everybody else and making sure that students are treated the same," he said.