JUNIOR HIGH GIRL'S SCIENCE PROJECT ON POT QUESTIONED

SANTA CRUZ -- School officials are considering whether to snuff out a
13-year-old girl's science project that examines medical uses for marijuana.

The junior high school student was allowed to present her report to
classmates Thursday, but afterward school officials confiscated her props
- -- including a marijuana-laced muffin and a spray bottle of
marijuana-steeped rubbing alcohol.

The girl's father, Joe Morris, said Mission Hill Junior High officials gave
initial clearance for the project and should have said something earlier if
they objected. But he said he might have erred in letting his daughter take
the props to school.

"I should have used better judgment," he said.

Morris said his daughter became interested in the subject because her aunt
is a caregiver for a woman who uses marijuana as a medicine.

School officials haven't decided if the girl can display her "Mary Jane for
Pain" project next week when judges from University of California Santa
Cruz and the NASA/Ames Research Lab award prizes.

Valerie Corral, executive director of a group that provides medical
marijuana, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel the project was a good one but it
was inappropriate to let the girl take the prescriptive marijuana to school.