Marijuana policy is an issue stuck in limbo and in need of blazing legislative action. California State University, Long Beach should be the spark.
California legalized the prescription of marijuana for medicinal purposes in 1996 with Proposition 215, or the Compassionate Care Act. Then, in 2003, the state updated this law to include the use of medical marijuana identification cards.
At CSULB, the only drugs allowed on campus are those “lawfully prescribed or otherwise lawfully permitted.”
It should be legal for a student with the proper prescription or identification card to possess marijuana at any time, including on campus.
However, “marijuana, whether prescribed or otherwise, is prohibited on campus grounds and facilities,” the handbook of campus regulations says in the section, “Drugs on Campus.”
Though a student may have a legal prescription in the state of California for the medicinal drug, he or she becomes a criminal once they step foot on campus.
“Possession on campus, even with a Prop. 215 card, is prohibited,” Crime Prevention Sargeant Keith Caires said.
Let’s hope this policy is not in place out of a concern that thousands of students would begin roaming campus baked out of their minds. After all, alcohol is available on campus at 11 a.m., and classes aren’t full of drunks.
When you treat people like adults, they act like it.
The regulation most certainly isn’t there out of health or safety risks that marijuana may pose to students.
According to the same set of regulations, students with appropriate prescriptions can possess Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin while on campus, despite the fact that 71 percent of fatal overdoses in 2013 involved painkillers, according to the CDC.
No, our campus regulations are a symbol of the joke that marijuana regulation has become.
“I have no problem with people using [marijuana] for medical purposes,” Caires said. “But 90 percent of what I see is abuse.”
Caires is probably right, if abuse means using marijuana without a prescription, but what about the other 10 percent? Should they some have their legal right to take medicine infringed upon because most of the people Caires sees are using the drug recreationally?
Sometimes, we let preconceived notions get in the way, and we forget the 10 percent in need.
Senior theater major Peter Fellows chose not to inform DSS of his medicinal marijuana prescription out of fear that he would lose his financial aid.
“Financial aid demands [that] all funds distributed [are] repaid if you are caught violating campus drug policy,” Fellows said.
At ten years old, Fellows was diagnosed with an eye disease called Retinus Pigmentosa, which will most likely leave him blind one day. A few years ago, he said he began suffering from unexplained hand tremors.
Fellows used marijuana for the first time when he got a prescription for it at the age of 21.
He said he prefers to use the edible forms of marijuana – which have an increased cannabidiol content – and that the prescription helps with his hand tremors.
Cannabidiol is a component of the plant that has medicinal properties and does not make the user feel “stoned,” according to the Project CBD, a website defending cannabis therapeutics.
If the tremors begin acting up while Fellows is at school, he must wait until he gets home where he leaves his medication because of the campus regulation, Fellows said.
Caught in a cultural divide, marijuana’s scientifically proven medical benefits are usually outweighed by the stigma it carries.
“If a student is in so much pain that they need to smoke a doobie before the test, then they’re probably not going to pass the test,” Disabled Student Services Coordinator of Support Services and Advising Peter Perbix said.
This doesn’t mean the student with the proper legal prescription shouldn’t maintain the right to possess a “doobie.” The labels of prescription painkillers do not advise popping a few pills just prior to an exam, but you are still legally allowed to possess them.
“The university obviously has the ability to enact or revise policy,” Executive Director of News and Digital Media Michael Uhlenkamp said via email. “The campus regulation on this issue follows federal law.”
Federal law can be challenged, though. And as the four states that recently legalized the use of recreational marijuana and the 21 states that have legalized it for medical purposes have shown, the feds simply have bigger issues to worry about.
CSULB can continue to impose archaic regulations, or it can be the first campus in the California State University system to catch up to reality and go to bat for sick and disabled students by legalizing medical marijuana.