A Virginia couple has filed a lawsuit against their son’s school, the school resource officer, and the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office after their 11-year-old son was kicked out of school for bringing a plant — that wasn’t pot — to school, the Roanoke Times is reporting. 
 
 The troubles for the unnamed sixth-grader, identified only as RMB, began in September 2014. Melvin Williams, the lawyer for Bruce and Linda Bays, the boy’s parents, says that the boy was at school when word somehow got to school administrators that he had a bag of marijuana and a lighter in his backpack. 
 
 “We know they relied on ‘tips’ that after the fact turn out to be less than reliable.” 
 
 The boy was in gym class when he was summoned to the principal’s office. There, the principal, in the presence of the school resource officer, emptied the boy’s backpack and found a bag containing leaves and a lighter. He was immediately suspended for 10 days, pending an administrative hearing, then kicked out of school for a year. The school resource officer also filed marijuana possession charges against the youth in juvenile court. 
 
 There was only one problem: three tests on the plant that the boy brought to school determined that it wasn’t marijuana, according to Raw Story. 
 
 “The field test came back not inconclusive, but negative. Yet [Resource Officer Calohan] went to a magistrate and swore he possessed marijuana at school.” 
 
 RMB’s parents believe that he was likely the victim of a prank; RMB rides the same bus with high school students and his parents believe an older teen likely put the substance into his backpack without RMB knowing about it, a claim the school has rejected. 
 
 The school maintains that the fact that the substance the boy allegedly brought to school turned out not to be marijuana is irrelevant; under the school’s Zero Tolerance drug policy, “lookalike” drugs are also forbidden. 
 
 The case illustrates how schools’ so-called “Zero Tolerance” policies, while well-intentioned, can sometimes be taken to ridiculous lengths. Earlier this month, according to this Inquisitr report, a first-grader in Colorado was suspended, under his school’s zero-tolerance violence policy, for pointing his finger in the shape of a gun. 
 
 RMB will be allowed to resume attending school — at an alternative school and under strict probationary guidelines — on Monday, but his parents want him back in his old school, with his record expunged. 
 
 RMB’s parents claim that, since their son’s suspension for bringing not-marijuana to school, the gifted and talented student has been withdrawn, and is being treated by a child psychiatrist for depression and panic attacks. 
 
 [Image courtesy of: Set Apart People] ||||| Some parents in Dorchester County are furious after nine students at Eagles Nest Elementary School were suspended for violating a school drug policy. 
 
 The problem parents say is the children weren't caught with drugs. They were accused of having sugar mixed with Kool-Aid in their possession. 
 
 ABC News 4 spoke with one parent Tuesday who said her child's infraction was reduced during an expulsion hearing at the district office. The child is now on a probationary status with the district and will be able to return to school Thursday. 
 
 
 
 "We called the school board, and they expedited the hearing to Tuesday," said one woman whose son was suspended. "So, today was the expulsion hearing. All the students were put up for expulsion for having Kool-Aid and sugar which was called "happy crack". 
 
 The woman said she didn't even know what "happy crack" was when school officials called her last week to say her son was being suspended. 
 
 "The way she called me, I thought my son died," she said. "She said there's this epidemic going on at school with happy crack. I Googled it. I'm like Kool-Aid and sugar, are you serious? I was appalled. I was floored. I really didn't think it would go to this extreme." 
 
 Administrators at the district office say possession of any substance, whether illegal or not, that looks like an illegal substance is a violation of a school policy, stating the following: 
 
 "No student will market or distribute any substance which is represented to be or is substantial similar in color, shape, size or markings of a controlled substance in any of the circumstances listed above. Look-alike substance or substances that mimic the effect of drugs will be treated as illegal substances." 
 
 It is a level three offense and constitutes criminal conduct under the JICH, a South Carolina code of laws. 
 
 Parents told ABC News 4 they had no idea of the policy in the district's handbook and neither did their children. They say they children thought they were buying the equivalent of a pixie stick. 
 
 "His intent was not malicious," one woman told us. "The other children's intent was not malicious, but they were treated like criminals. They are ten years old. To go about it the way they did, ostracize the children, call the school board, when I know of other school districts who have had the same issue and those children weren't treated as harshly." 
 
 She said it is uncalled for, disappointing and disheartening. 
 
 As for the children's punishment, school officials said all disciplinary hearings for the students are finished. All of the students were facing expulsion, but the offenses have been reduced to level one infractions. 
 
 This isn't the first time "crack candy" has made headlines. Last year an 8th-grader in Cleveland was suspended for five days. 
 
 The story is generating some solid feedback on our Facebook page. Here's that discussion. ||||| In a case that could have far-reaching implications, parents of an elementary school student who has leukemia are suing a Schaumburg-based school district and the state of Illinois for the right for her to take medical marijuana at school. 
 
 Plaintiffs identified only as J.S. and M.S., parents of A.S., filed suit Wednesday claiming that the state’s ban on taking the drug at school is unconstitutional because it denies the right to due process and violates the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). 
 
 The student, who is 11 years old, was treated for her leukemia with chemotherapy, which resulted in the child now suffering from seizure disorders and epilepsy, according to the suit. 
 
 The girl received treatments and a “substantial” amount of traditional medications to treat her seizures, but they were not successful, and the child’s treating physicians have certified her as being qualified to receive medical marijuana to treat her epilepsy, the suit stated. 
 
 The family asked officials in School District 54 to allow the girl to store and use cannabis on school grounds but were denied because of prohibitions in state law, according to the suit. 
 
 School officials, the attorney filing the lawsuit and national marijuana activists pro and con interviewed for this story did not know of any previous similar court case, meaning this lawsuit could set legal precedent. 
 
 The state medical cannabis law prohibits possessing or using marijuana on school grounds or buses, though a school may not prohibit a student from using medical marijuana at home. 
 
 District 54 Superintendent Andy DuRoss said officials there regularly work with parents to devise care plans to accommodate the needs of students with medical conditions but are prohibited by state law from allowing pot on school grounds. 
 
 “We cannot legally grant the request,” he said. “We’re going to abide by the law and do our best to support our students within the confines of the law.” 
 
 He added that the district will comply with whatever is ordered by the courts. 
 
 The girl has been attending school off and on depending on her condition but likely won’t be able to continue without her medication, which would be in conflict with a state law requiring children to go to school, her attorney, Steve Glink, said. 
 
 Under her doctors’ recommendations, the girl wears a medical cannabis patch on her foot, which contains small amounts of THC, the component of marijuana that can make users high. 
 
 Occasionally, when the patch is insufficient to control the girl’s seizures, she uses cannabis oil drops with small amounts of THC on her tongue or wrists to regulate her epilepsy, the suit stated. 
 
 The student has an individualized education plan (IEP) for intellectual impairments, and attends “mainstream” classes with a teacher’s aide, according to the suit. 
 
 The state’s medical cannabis program provides for qualified patients to take medical marijuana with immunity from state prosecution, despite a federal ban on the drug. However, the state law prohibits use at schools and dictates that school personnel are not required to be caregivers to administer cannabis, and are not immune from prosecution for possession or distribution of the drug. 
 
 The suit, filed in federal court in Chicago, asks for a preliminary injunction to allow a school employee to help the student store and consume medical cannabis on school property, on school buses and at school-related events in compliance with her doctor’s orders. Since taking medical marijuana, the girl is calmer and more alert and better able to focus and learn, has fewer seizures and can take less of her traditional, debilitating medicine, a “night and day” difference from before, Glink said. 
 
 A hearing has been set for the matter Friday in federal court. 
 
 At least one other state has addressed the issue legislatively. In Colorado, where voters authorized medical marijuana in 2000, lawmakers let schools allow the drug for medical use, but no schools did so initially. 
 
 In 2016, in a bipartisan vote, lawmakers mandated that schools allow parents or caregivers to give qualified students medical marijuana. The measure was called Jack’s Law, for Jack Splitt, a 15-year-old with cerebral palsy who died that year, after the law was passed. 
 
 Officials of nursing organizations generally did not want nurses to administer the drug at schools, as they do with other medications, because they were worried about the federal law prohibiting marijuana possession, said the sponsor of the law, Colorado state Rep. Jonathan Springer, a Democrat. The law prohibits smoking the drug in school, but allows patches or tinctures, as long as it’s not disruptive to classrooms. 
 
 “We fundamentally believe your right to medication should never have to conflict with your right to an education,” Springer said. 
 
 He said two doctors must approve medical marijuana for kids under 18, so that medical professionals ultimately decide who qualifies, not lawmakers. Seizures and traditional medications can be so debilitating to children that marijuana’s side effects are far less dangerous, he said. 
 
 “There’s a reason parents are doing this,” he said, “It’s not to get their kids high. It’s to keep them alive and healthy.” 
 
 Chicago Tribune’s Steve Schmadeke contributed. 
 
 rmccoppin@chicagotribune.com 
 
 Twitter @RobertMcCoppin 
 
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– The details of the story are hazy, but what's certain is this: An 11-year-old was suspended from school in Virginia after school officials in late September found what they believed was a marijuana leaf in his backpack, along with a lighter. (A suit filed in the case alleges the assistant principal found "crumpled leaves.") The boy, identified only as RMB, was suspended for 364 days for alleged "possession of marijuana," and he faced charges in juvenile court. Turns out, however, that three tests found the leaf wasn't pot at all, and the juvenile charges were dropped, the Roanoke Times reports. But things with the school weren't so simple: Only now, six months after the case began, has RMB been able to return to class at a different school, and he remains on probation. That time away has taken a toll. The son of Bruce and Linda Bays of Bedford County, both teachers, used to be an easygoing, upbeat child. Now he gets panic attacks, suffers from depression, and fears authority figures. After a disciplinary hearing, his mother tells the Times, "he just broke down and said his life was over. He would never be able to get into college; he would never be able to get a job." He's being treated by a psychiatrist, and his parents have launched a federal lawsuit against Bedford County Schools and the county sheriff's office. But the suit could face a hurdle when it comes to school drug policy: It also bans "imitation controlled substances," defined as a "pill, capsule, tablet, or other item which is not a controlled substance." In the meantime, it remains unclear how the leaf got in RMB's bag. The Inquisitr points to concerns about "zero tolerance" school policies, noting that this month, a 6-year-old was suspended for shaping his hand like a gun—and it wasn't the first such suspension.