STUDENT'S 'POT BROWNIES' SICKEN 7, INCLUDING TEACHER

Seven people -- including a Santa Cruz middle school teacher -- got sick at
an outing in the park after eating brownies made with marijuana.

The other six were students, including the 14-year-old boy who made them
and brought them to school. "Everybody got treated and medically cleared at
the scene there" by paramedics, said Santa Cruz police Sgt. Steve Clark.
"There was some stomach unrest, and everyone is A-OK."

The teen who brought the brownies is a student at Sojourn Charter Middle
School on the city's West Side. The school was created in 1997 as a parent
cooperative with two classrooms, two teachers, a principal and about 36
students.

"The kid was known to have had a history with marijuana at the school,"
Clark said. So when the 25-year-old teacher asked him for one of the "pot
brownies," Clark said, "I think it was in jest."

When she became dizzy and confused, and some students said they felt
nauseated, paramedics were called. Marilyn Armstrong, the principal, said
the "situation has been remedied" and declined to say if the boy had been
suspended. The incident happened Sept. 25.

Clark said he thought the teacher was foolish to joke about marijuana with
the boy. But he said he could understand what the boy might have been
thinking. "You're 14 years old," he said, "and you get your teacher high on
a marijuana brownie! How cool does that make you?"