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Students have medical marijuana T-shirts confiscated
11-03-06|in-forum



Two Rapid City high school students who showed up in school wearing shirts advocating passage of South Dakota's medical marijuana ballot issue have had those shirts confiscated.


A security guard told the two Rapid City Stevens High School seniors to remove the shirts as they went to their first class on Oct. 20. The principal, Katie Bray, confiscated the shirts.


The students, David Valenzuela, 17, and Chris Fuentes, 18, say the confiscation violated their rights to political free speech.

But Peter Wharton, Rapid City superintendent, said it had nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with violating a school policy forbidding clothing that displays images of alcohol, drugs or tobacco products on school grounds.


"Unequivocally, no. It had nothing to do with political speech," he said.


The green T-shirts featured an image of a marijuana leaf and the message "Vote Yes on Initiated Measure 4."


Students can wear political T-shirts as long as administrators determine the clothing is appropriate, Wharton said.


Some have worn T-shirts urging passage of South Dakota's abortion ban.


"We had been seeing all these abortion shirts at school, and we thought, OK, I guess we can get political," Valenzuela said.


Wharton said the wording on the Valenzuela and Fuentes T-shirts is allowed but the image of the marijuana leaf is not. Any student can advocate for passing the medical marijuana measure as long as a drug insignia is not used, he said. "Advocate to your heart's content, but don't use a marijuana leaf to do it. It's against school policy."


Valenzuela said the action was unfair. "We're trying to get our viewpoint out and tell people what it (Initiated Measure 4) is, and we can't. We're just trying to spread Measure 4."


The picture of the marijuana leaf should be protected as political speech, said Valenzuela, who added that he was campaigning for a ballot issue, not promoting the use of an illegal drug.


"That's absurd," Wharton said. "I'm not even going to dignify that argument with a response."


Principal Bray returned the shirts to the students at the end of the school day. Valenzuela said she threatened them with suspension from school if they wore the shirts to class again.


"We were afraid of being expelled," he said.


"Then, I would have gotten involved," said Christine Horan, Valenzuela's mother. She said she supported her son's decision to wear the shirt but made him wear another shirt underneath it, just in case.

 

Sec

High school students advertising for medical marijuana is not going to help the cause. People are going to look at that and think that there is only one reason that high school students want to see medical marijuana legalized. That is so that they can get a "recomendation" and smoke it.

What would help the cause is if there were more people who actually need medical marijuana in the news.

I read an article in the (nearest large city) newspaper that did a very good job of reporting interviews of medical marijuana patients (finally, the Sunday before the election). It also interviewed opposers of the measure. The med. patients were much more educated and informed on the issue while those opposed seemed to repeat untruths and rumor.

I looked and looked for the article online. The paper posted articles on local issues online, but did not re-print the article of South Dakota's Measure 4 online.

All those kids had to do was put their sign over the image of a pot leaf. They could have continued to wear their t-shirts and still get their message across.

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dedbr

it did get in the paper. On top of all the other issues, this small story, even tho it may be detrimental like you say, it did get the issue in front of the voter's and give them a chance to see what the hell it is.

Let's face it. The majority of voter's don't even know what half of the damn issues or sections or whatever the hell number their voting on. Even with bad press, at least they know what the hell number it is and what it's about when it comes to MM.

Not much I'll admit, but it's a start. Maybe next time we'll get some good press and even get that vote we didn't get this time around.......


Some Where In Ded Land......The important thing is to vote......

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