LCSD considers banning medical cannabis on campus

Medical cannabis may be legal in Mississippi, but students, faculty and staff at Lowndes County School District may be required to leave that particular medicine at home.

The school board on Friday tabled a discussion on banning medical cannabis on school grounds, deferring the likely passage of the policy to the July meeting. If passed, it wouldn’t prevent students, faculty or staff from having marijuana prescriptions. They just couldn’t possess or use the substance on campus or at district-sponsored events.

Generally, where students are concerned, prescription medication can be left with and administered by a school nurse with signed parental consent. However, Superintendent Sam Allison said the new policy, which follows a Mississippi School Boards Association recommendation, would exclude medical marijuana from that process.

“Because (the law) passed, we just had to make some decisions on what we would do, whether we would administer it in school, that sort of thing, basically follow the Mississippi School Boards (Association) recommendation,” Allison said. “We’re not going to give it to students in school, regardless, that kind of thing.”

The Mississippi Legislature passed a law allowing for medical cannabis in its most recent session. A doctor can prescribe it for such conditions as seizures, cancer, autism, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, Crohn’s disease and more.

Allison said the district does not have a lot of student prescriptions in general and most likely would not have to deal with a cannabis prescription.

“We probably wouldn’t have to deal with it anyway, but if you don’t put it (as a policy), it might come up,” he said. “They would have to do that outside of school. We don’t do a lot of prescriptions in school. There’s some in the middle of the day, but most of the time we try to work it out where we’re not giving medicine. Now there’s some that we do, but (medical cannabis) is not one that we want to have to store and keep.”

The policy extends to staff members as well, stating that the district can “refuse to hire, discharge, discipline, or otherwise take an adverse employment action against an individual with respect to hiring, discharging, tenure, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment as a result, in whole or in part, of that individual’s use of medical cannabis, regardless of the individual’s impairment or lack of impairment resulting from the use of medical cannabis.”

The policy says it is not required to allow the use of medical cannabis or modify working conditions for those choosing to get a prescription.
LCSD board attorney Jeff Smith said MSBA sent a draft policy recommendation to its members. Not only can employees not use medical cannabis on district property, at a district function or performing district business, it also prohibits employees from being high at work — even if they used the cannabis at home.

“It’s sort of like drinking liquor,” Smith said. “Of course liquor is not prescribed but it’s not illegal. If you utilize marijuana because it’s prescribed to you, and it in any way interferes with your ability to teach, then you could be terminated.”

LCSD’s employee policy comes straight from Section 7 from the MMCA.

The law text states the MMCA “provide(s) that nothing in the act prohibits an employer from disciplining an employee for ingesting medical cannabis in the workplace or for working while under the influence of medical cannabis.”

At the moment, CMSD is not adopting anything like LCSD regarding medical cannabis prescriptions, and neither CMSD superintendent Cherie Labat nor board attorney Chris Hemphill has seen the policy recommendation from MSBA.

Hemphill’s biggest concern about adopting such a policy is more centered on denying students medicine they are prescribed on school grounds rather than action that could be taken against employees.

“We haven’t explored that as an option yet, so I have not explored whether we could even adopt that policy,” Hemphill said. “If students have certain conditions that require this medication, just like asthma medication or (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) medication, I’m not sure how you’ll be able to prohibit them from being able to access that medication on campus, especially if they’ve got a (special education) ruling.”

CMSD has been waiting on the Mississippi Department of Education to make recommendations once their attorneys worked through the law, Hemphill said. MDE lawyers will typically draft a sample policy that can be used, and they run it through the attorney general’s office before it is sent out to the schools.