09/11/2019
In DC it's OKed for medical Cannabis use in school.
11-year-old Zoey Carty isn’t able to join the other students in the classroom this back to school day.
Zoey only 11 but suffers from frontal lobe epilepsy & experiences seizures up to dozens of times a day, sometimes.
Zoey’s mother, Dawn Lee-Carty, found prescription drugs didn't work.
“They don't make me feel good," Zoey said. "They make me want to go lay down, give me headaches,and make my legs ache. They just don't feel good and I get too tired afterwards." “That’s another thing that doesn’t make me feel good,” Zoey said. “I should go to school either way, medicine or no medicine.”
The only form of treatment that works for her severe seizures has been *****na & oil, which she takes through a small inhaler. But of course like in my home state public law Zoey from taking her medicine at school.... 🤔🤔🤬🤬
It “means the world” to see her daughter alert and happy. Said her
“To have a place where she belongs means the world to me,” Lee-Carty said.
The debate surrounding *****na in schools is playing out across the
More than 30 states have medical ma*****na, but most don't allow it in schools.
D.C. law however makes it legal for minors to qualify for medical ma*****na treatment BUT the law is silent and kinda slow when it comes to being used in schools.
Zoey’s mother called council members, the mayor’s office and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. On Friday, Norton sent a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson advocating on behalf of Zoey’s condition.
“A new policy, compliant with federal law, would allow the student to use her medical ma*****na in & would prove beneficial to this student,” the letter reads. “Medical ma*****na, of course, is already in the District, and it would seem logical to allow of this medicine, especially when needed immediately, where the student frequently is — at school.”
On Tuesday, D.C. Public Schools clarified its policy, telling News4 health professionals will administer medical ma*****na to students in schools.
“That's good, sonow we need to make it 50 states,” Lee-Carty said. “I mean I'm so happy that D.C. schools are able to do this, but it should be able to touch all 50 states because this is not an incident.”
While the D.C. policy allows all patients in public schools to access medical ma*****na, Zoey’s case is more complicated.
She attends Friendship Public Charter School, which, along with private schools in D.C., can make their own policies of state law. Friendship Charter School declined to comment as to whether Zoey and other students will be allowed to take their medical cannabis to school.
**p **pheals
Credit Mark Segraves and Allison Park at NBC4 DC
# Rewritten & by Roy Borrego
