Santa Rosa Girl With Severe Epilepsy Can Take Cannabis Drug To School, Judge Rules
The case pitted federal and state laws that ban cannabis on school grounds against a different federal law that guarantees students with special needs the right to a "free and appropriate public education."
The Associated Press:
Judge: California Child Can Take Cannabis Drug To School
A California kindergartner can keep bringing a cannabis-based drug used for emergency treatment of a rare form of epilepsy to her public school, a judge ruled Friday. The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reported that a judge sided with the family of 5-year-old Brooke Adams. The Rincon Valley Union School District in Santa Rosa sought to ban the ointment from school grounds because it contains the active ingredient in marijuana. (9/22)
KQED:
Santa Rosa Family Wins Fight For Daughter To Go To School — With Her Cannabis Meds
Brooke Adams was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome when she was just 3 months old. The rare and severe seizure disorder often causes developmental delays. Like a lot of kids with Dravet, Brooke didn’t respond to a long list of heavy-duty pharmaceutical drugs. Every time she had a seizure, her mother, Jana Adams, said, “we’d have to call 911 to have her ambulanced to the ER, to load her up with all kinds of drugs. Her longest one was three hours.” The rescue medication they tried — to stop her seizures once they started — would often slow her breathing so much she would have to be intubated. (Romney, 9/21)