Pubdate: Thu, 11 Apr 2013
Source: FFWD (CN AB)
Copyright: 2013 FFWD
Contact:  http://www.ffwdweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1194
Author: Crystal Schick

THE DOPEST CLASSROOM IN SAIT

Medical marijuana user challenges school's rules

For most students at SAIT Polytechnic, their education includes a
backpack full of pens, paper and a laptop. For first-year journalism
student Lisa Kirkman, however, her backpack also includes a vaporizer
and a bag full of weed, which she legally inhales during class.

With a Health Canada licence to smoke medicinal marijuana, Kirkman is
challenging SAIT administration, teachers and students on a campus
with no medical marijuana policy. "I'm legally allowed to smoke
anywhere people can smoke [cigarettes], and I'm allowed to vaporize
everywhere else, except private places when asked not to, and
airplanes," says Kirkman.

Kirkman is no stranger to weed. "I was toking regularly by age 19 
[1994], consider my use medical since 2001, and got a licence in 2009," 
she says. She's the author of SexPot: The Marijuana Lover's Guide to 
Gettin' It On and Happy Buds, an editor at Skunk magazine, an 
anti-prohibition activist, and the founder of Calgary's Marihuana 
Medical Access Regulations (MMRA) patient support group (Health Canada 
spells marijuana with an H).

She also has several chronic, degenerative and ongoing health
conditions, including a blood disorder that prevents her from taking
anti-inflammatories for extended periods of time, and a sensitivity to
opiates. "My conditions exclude me from being able to use most
traditional pharmaceutical medications," she says.

When the weather was warmer, Kirkman took her prescription outside
with the cigarette smokers, but in September of last year she began
using a vaporizer - a device that enables the user to inhale the
medicine without creating actual smoke - inside the classrooms. "When
it's winter, I am less likely to go outside to smoke because it is
cold, and I have to be exposed to toxic smoke from the smokers while
I'm medicating," she says.

According to Michael Sondermann, associate registrar at SAIT, the
school administration is looking at several options for dealing with
students or staff who are licensed to use medicinal marijuana,
including installing a communal smoking room. Although Kirkman is the
only student SAIT is aware of who requires the use of medical
marijuana during class time, administration is still attempting to
create a policy that will "balance the rights of users and non-users
and [still] ensure that SAIT meets all of its legal obligations to
both groups," says Sondermann.

Kirkman says she has received surprisingly little negative feedback
about her use of marijuana in class. "Most comments are 'oh, what's
that smell?' or 'do you have to do that here?' or 'I really enjoyed
that smell.'"

Two instructors have approached Kirkman with concerns about her using
the vaporizer in class. The first confronted her in class and
requested that she not use during that class anymore. The second
instructor was somewhat more accommodating. "He waited until after
[class], was very respectful and explained he understood why I needed
to medicate," says Kirkman, adding his main concern was the bad
ventilation of that particular classroom.

More often than not it is "the smell or the noise of the machine that
people have a problem with," says Kirkman. To combat this, she uses
deodorizing aerosol sprays and tries to only run the machine before
class begins.

"I don't think it's very fair at all," says one classmate who didn't
want to be named. "Some people are trying to get over an addiction to
the substance, and having her shove it in all our faces, every second
of the day, is both a hindrance and a nuisance."

Monica Henderson, another classmate, is sympathetic. "It doesn't
perturb me that much," she says. "However, I think that it would be
respectful of her to consider alternative ways or times to medicate so
that she doesn't affect her classmates, if she hasn't considered this
already."

According to Kirkman, she is on a medication schedule, similar to some
pharmaceuticals that patients are told to take at certain times. The
schedule "sometimes allows me to wait between classes, but sometimes I
have to medicate more often," she says.

Kirkman says it's important to her that people understand the
difference between vaporizing and smoking marijuana, because
vaporizing doesn't use or create smoke. "I am not sitting in the
corner, smoking a bong or smoking a fat blunt like on Cheech and
Chong," she says. "I don't get high for fun in class, I medicate so I
can be in class."

Ultimately, however, Kirkman is defiant. "Legally they [SAIT] cannot
stop me, no matter what rules they make," she says.

Crystal Schick is a first-year journalism student at SAIT.
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