ILL BOY'S NEW HURDLE: SCHOOL DRUG RULES

Life just got more complicated for an 8-year-old boy and his mother who's
had great success battling his mental disorders with a doctor-approved
marijuana therapy.

The youngster's medical condition has improved so dramatically that he can
now attend public school, but school officials won't permit a school nurse
to administer his cannabis capsules and won't let him take the pills
himself on campus, the child's mother said Monday.

"Other kids get their medication," she complained. But the drug her son
needs daily at 1 p.m. must be delivered by her personally, off the school
grounds, she said.

"It makes him feel he's not normal, that he's being treated differently. He
wonders why he's being targeted. He just wants to be normal," she said.

She hopes to persuade school officials to change their minds and allow the
capsules to be given on campus.

The woman, whose name is being withheld by The Bee to protect the boy's
identity, has been treating her son with medical cannabis for the past
year, at home and at the private school he had been attending.

But in April, they moved from Rocklin to El Dorado County. She presented
her son's new school with the required permission slip for students who
need medication at school, a form she and the boy's doctor signed.

The day before the boy was to report to his new school, however, a message
left on the family answering machine informed the mother that her son's
recommended medication could not be administered on campus.

So, she says, she's been forced to drive a round trip of 26 miles each
noontime to remove him from the school grounds, give him his capsules, and
return him to class.

Vicki L. Barber, superintendent of the El Dorado County Office of
Education, said she could not comment on any specific case. But she said
state law permits schools to dispense drugs only when they are formally
"prescribed" by a physician. The boy's doctor made a "recommendation," and
there is a difference, Barber added, between a "prescription" and a
doctor's "recommendation."

Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, permits the use of
medical marijuana and the possession of the drug by the patient or a
primary caregiver.

A school district cannot be legally defined as a "primary caregiver,"
Barber said.

Because the district has a zero-tolerance policy, students are not
permitted to have in their possession or to self-administer drugs of any
kind, she said.

The boy's mother said the school district is relying on a technicality to
dodge responsibility.

"There is no 'prescription' for 'oral cannabis,' " the capsule she prepares
in a five-hour cooking and drying process at home, she said.

But it is a part of her son's "individual education plan" or IEP, the
state's "prescription" for helping children with special needs, the mother
said.

School district officials would not comment on the boy's specific IEP.

The boy has been diagnosed with multiple behavioral disorders and has been
hospitalized three times when doctor-prescribed psychotropic drugs failed,
his mother explained. He was a terror at home, at times attacking family
members, and was unmanageable at school.

Sixteen doctors prescribed 19 drugs and none worked, his mother said.

In desperation and with the blessing of an Oakland pediatrician, Dr.
Michael Alcalay, she turned to marijuana.

Use of medical marijuana by children has never been studied beyond
anecdotal reports, according to cannabis researchers, so no scientific body
of literature can be used to compare the boy's case with others.

In the beginning, she baked the pot in muffins but later discovered that
the active ingredients work better when they are taken in capsule form, she
said.

Placer County authorities, alerted to the mother's unprecedented approach
to therapy, filed a petition against her last year that could have deprived
her of custody of the boy.

She won that fight in court: A judge dismissed the petition after an
extensive investigation by Child Protective Services found no need for an
order to protect the boy from neglect or mistreatment.

Since then, he's thrived on the marijuana therapy, his mother said.

"For the first time in his life, he is not aggressive, is able to follow
directions and is a fun-loving kid who, also for the first time, has
friends," she said.

"He had his very first birthday party last fall and was able to invite
friends, who actually came!"

The mother said she doesn't want to take legal action against the school
district, despite an offer of backing from the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I just want this settled quickly and quietly, and I want what's right for
my child.

"He's already been stigmatized because of his illness. Now they won't help
me give him the medication that's been working for him," she said.