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Students in Trouble for Medical Cannabis Now Suing College

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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]M[/dropcap]any colleges are facing a growing conflict between legal student consumption of medical cannabis under state law and the federal funding that impacts the institutions where they are enrolled.

According to the Associated Press, many students who have gotten in trouble for consuming cannabis, which they had medically prescribed to them, are now taking their schools to court. Many students have claimed they were using cannabis to treat serious issues like chronic pain but still got expelled from school. “They yanked me out of class in the middle of the school day,” said Sheida Assar, who was expelled from GateWay Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. “They escorted me to the administration like I was a . . . criminal. It’s discrimination, and it also violates my rights under the Arizona medical marijuana law.”

Many students in colleges studying medicine and other health fields have to get regularly drug tested. Although they’ve been assured that as long as they have a medical card, they would not get in trouble, the expulsions continue. “Many schools disability services offices are not universally listened to by the university,” said Michael Thad Allen, an attorney for a Connecticut nursing student who experience a similar scenario. “It just shows that these kinds of issues will become more common if employers and schools don’t abide by the law.”

“Universities can effectively decriminalize it, de-punish it and make it not something they focus on,” added Jared Moffat, campaigns coordinator for the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group for pro-marijuana laws.

Despite the fact that many schools are not on board with legal cannabis, cannabis consumption among college students is the highest it has been in years. Some colleges are even starting to offer college curriculum on cannabis. Although cannabis is still federally illegal, it seems that colleges need to catch up with the times.

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