School Board Fires A Florida Teacher for Medical Cannabis But Allows it For Students

Cannabis legalization has become widespread across the United States. Many states have adopted medical cannabis laws, and several allow recreational cannabis. It is easy to get frustrated by the negative opinions of anti-cannabis activists and supporters. After all, much of what they argue is based on misinformation. This information was abundantly plastered into the public’s minds for decades thanks to the United States Federal Government’s Reefer Madness campaign. The Reefer Madness era brainwashed generations into believing cannabis was this evil drug. It is still hard to break the stereotypes and negative stigma from this ill-informed campaign today. From 1937 to current the American people have been fed lies about cannabis by the federal government. Cannabis doesn’t hurt people; policing people for cannabis does. We have had Presidents that used cannabis. In fact, several of them. Yet, as a country, we continually elect fossils into office that don’t support the same rights for all Americans. Let’s explore how this very mindset upended a Florida teacher’s life when she got fired for using medical cannabis

A Florida Teacher Gets Fired for Using Legal Medical Cannabis

Cannabis may be legal, or is it? How can something be legal, yet people still have their lives destroyed over it while complying with the legal ramification set forth where they live. A Florida teacher knows this pain all too well, like many others in our country. A Florida high school teacher has been fired from their job educating and inspiring our youth because of medical cannabis. The Brevard County School board held a meeting deciding the fate of a Space Coast Junior-Senior High School teacher Allison Enright. The school board decided that Allison had to go, and terminated her because of her use of medical cannabis, and then cited the termination of this educator by saying,

“The school district must be a drug-free workplace to receive certain federal grants”.

Okay, we have heard banks say this, so that sounds reasonable enough, right? Personally, I don’t think so. Medical cannabis is legal in the state of Florida. The federal government still considers it a schedule one substance in the state of Florida like it does everywhere else. Allison was utilizing medical cannabis in the form of THC capsules. She had replaced opioids with cannabis. The school board claims they are regretful of the educator’s termination. I don’t see it that way.

But There’s an Unfair Double Standard

In 2019, the Brevard County School district adopted a policy that allows students to use medical cannabis. This policy never had any mention of staff. If the school board says that it must remain a drug-free campus in order to receive federal grants, then how can it allow students to access medical cannabis and not staff?

How many more American lives are we going to allow politics to destroy? When will we as a people decide that we have had enough of these political individuals with personal agendas? We don’t have to live like this. We allow it to happen. The representatives of our nation we elect are supposed to represent the will of the people, not private agendas. The firing of this educator is a slap in the face to the American people letting them know they really don’t have the freedoms they think they do. An individual who has a medical cannabis card should not have to face the fear of losing their job and livelihood because they don’t want to conform by taking deadly, dangerous, and addictive opioid or prescription medication.

Look at these alarming stats from the CDC regarding overdose deaths:

• 72.9% of opioid-involved overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids.
• Opioids were involved in 49,860 overdose deaths in 2019 (70.6% of all drug overdose deaths).
• Drug overdose deaths involving psychostimulants such as methamphetamine are increasing with and without synthetic opioid involvement.
• From 2018 to 2019, the largest increase in death rates involving synthetic opioids occurred in the West (67.9%).
• The largest increase in death rates involving psychostimulants occurred in the Northeast (43.8%).

The school board is making a very uneducated stand on this one. Opioid addiction has ravished our nation. COVID-19 may have quieted down the media regarding opioid addiction, but this epidemic is still very real. Doctors across our nation have handed out prescription pills like candy getting kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.

Firing a teacher over her use of medical cannabis while having a medical cannabis card is absurd. It’s kind of like saying go back to taking your pills as we told you to. Really America, we deserve better than this. Let’s rally to get this Florida teacher her job back. You can reach out to Brevard Public Schools via their ethics hotline. Let them know you disapprove of their decision to fire Allison Enright. If students have access to medical cannabis, teachers should as well. If they want to argue it is a workplace, it is also a place where children come to work on their education. Cannabis doesn’t impair the ability of an individual to be an educator or their ability to receive an education. Draconian prohibition does.