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Kid get suspended for not holding a marijuana


Jangler

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http://www.roanoke.com/news/columns_and_blogs/columns/dan_casey/casey-not-pot-leaf-gets-th-grader-in-big-trouble/article_67dc2868-0f0a-53c0-96ad-595a88391aa3.html
 

Some schoolchildren claim another student bragged about having marijuana. They inform school administrators. An assistant principal finds a leaf and a lighter in the boy’s knapsack. The student is suspended for a year. A sheriff’s deputy files marijuana possession charges in juvenile court.

All of the above and more happened last September to the 11-year-old son of Bedford County residents Bruce and Linda Bays. He was a sixth-grader in the gifted-and-talented program at Bedford Middle School.
There was only one problem: Months after the fact, the couple learned the substance wasn’t marijuana. A prosecutor dropped the juvenile court charge because the leaf had field-tested negative three times.

“He told me [her son] had been seen in the bathroom with a marijuana leaf and lighter and that I needed to come to [bedford Middle School] quickly,” Linda said. She called her husband (a retired schoolteacher in both Bedford and Pittsylvania counties) and they met in Wilson’s office.
“He had us sit down and he proceeded to tell us [our son] had been seen in the classroom with a lighter and a leaf,” Linda said. Wilson added that their son told “several students” that “we had marijuana growing in our back yard and that his dad knew about it and didn’t care,” Linda said.
“It’s farfetched,” Bruce said. “Anybody who knows me knows that’s not true.”

The assistant principal also told the couple that their son had told Wilson a high-schooler on the bus had given him the leaf. (The couple said their son has told them repeatedly he has no idea how the leaf got in his backpack, that he didn’t know it was there, and that he never showed it off to anyone.)
“I asked, ‘Can I see the leaf?’ and the deputy said, ‘No, it’s already in evidence,’ ” Linda told me. “We have never seen the leaf. He’s been out of school for six months.”

“The young man was telling people on the bus that he had marijuana that was given to him by someone from the high school,” Guynn told me. The attorney added the leaf was not dried, as marijuana typically is, but that “it was a little sprig” that looked to Guynn exactly like a photo of a marijuana leaf he found on the Internet.
And under the school system’s anti-drug policy it may not matter whether the leaf was actually marijuana or a similar-looking leaf, such as from a Japanese maple tree.

That’s because the policy treats “lookalike” and “imitation” drugs the same as the real thing. Here’s what it says:
“The unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession, use or being under the influence of alcohol, anabolic steroids, or any narcotic drug, hallucinogenic drug, amphetamine, barbiturate, marijuana or other controlled substance … [or] imitation controlled substances or drug paraphernalia while on school property, while going to and from school, or while engaged in or attending any school-sponsored or school approved activity or event, is prohibited, and will result in an automatic recommendation of expulsion.”

Guynn called that “a pretty standard rule across the commonwealth.”
“It’s the same punishment and exactly the same result” whether the leaf was marijuana or not, he said. For that reason, the Bays’ due-process claim should be tossed out, too, Guynn said.

 
Just say no to not real marijuana.

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