This in the EMU Echo (though I found it via annarbor.com): “Eastern prohibits medical marijuana.” Here’s a quote:
According to Greg O’Dell, the police chief at EMU, marijuana is prohibited on campus for any reason, including medicinal uses.
Associate Director of University Housing Brian Fitzgerald said though there were meetings in place discussing the possibility of allowing medicinal marijuana on campus, after looking at the possibilities, and other universities in Michigan as well as other states, EMU’s administration came to the conclusion that keeping campus a drug-free zone was best for the school.
The consequences for students caught with marijuana on-campus will most likely be treated as a conduct issue, and the first offense would be a $100 fine. This applies to students who have a medical marijuana card.
It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) this plays out. I’m not a doctor or a lawyer, but I have to wonder if this is both good for students who have a medical need and/or if it is legal. As one of the commentators on this article pointed out, imagine if EMU banned some sort of prescription drug that a student brought to campus that had the potential to be abused. That would be bad, right?
Yeah, I was wondering about the legality of that also. I expect we’ll find out pretty fast, the ACLU has been fairly aggressive in going after flouters of that law.
Chief O’Dell, an experienced law enforcement professional, also (if my memory serves) holds a law degree. There’s no reason to think EMU is venturing, in this respect, into questionable territory: rather, it seems like the prudent and typical choice of public universities. The Michigan medical pot law hardly settles all legal issues about possession or usage in the state. I am confident that the university’s position is tenable and quite legally defensible. For a university to continue to ban a substance that, under federal law, still remains illegal is hardly analogous to the hypothetical banning of a prescription medicine that’s legal under all state, federal and local laws.
Apparently, Central Michigan is taking the same approach:
http://www.cm-life.com/2010/09/03/medical-marijuana-not-allowed-on-cmu%E2%80%99s-campus-legal-disputes-mounting-throughout-michigan/
I’m sure that O’Dell (and presumably Gloria Hage) would have considered all aspects of this one, and it’s not analogous to other prescription drugs due its uneven legality nationwide.
Another plus for this approach: with the initiative to work toward a smoke-free campus, marijuana (medical or otherwise) would need to be banned on that basis.
Ummmmmmmm….
One doesn’t have to smoke it to benefit from it. Brownies if you have a lot or cookies if you have a little.
So I hear.