Your child has cancer. The only medicine that helps to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy is medical cannabis oil. She's well enough to go back to school and wants to so she can be with her friends. You are back at work full-time but like to drive her to school rather than have her take the bus so you can spend that time together in the morning.

But you have to drive back to her school before lunch. She needs her medicine to help her appetite and alleviate nausea. She's also in pain.

It is against the law for the school nurse to give it to her. It is against the law for the medicine to be on school property. The only thing you can do is leave work and drive a half hour back to school, pick her up, bring her home to give it to her, drive her back to school, and then go back to work.

Your employer is supportive, but you feel unprofessional for leaving work and you can't afford it either, but this is your child and you are going to do everything you can to help her, and the only thing helps is medical cannabis.

Nurses to administer medical cannabis

On Feb. 23, the Virginia Senate passed a bill allowing school health care providers and nurses to administer medical cannabis to elementary and secondary public school students on school property and at school events.

Currently under state law, possession of any cannabis product on school grounds may result in expulsion and reporting to law enforcement.

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Senate and House bills sponsored by Senator Glen Sturtevant (SB 1632: Cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil; use at school) and Delegate Chris Hurst’s companion bill (HB 1720: Public elementary and secondary school students; possession or distribution at school) would prohibit schools from suspending or expelling a student for using CBD or THC-A oil with valid physician issued documentation.

“Virginia students and their families depend on new, safely produced and regulated cannabidiol and THC-A oils to treat a host of potentially debilitating conditions,” said Sturtevant when he introduced the bill to the Senate floor.

The bill also protects school nurses and health care providers from prosecution for storing, dispensing and administering the oils in accordance with school board policy.

Medical cannabis oils will be treated like any other doctor prescribed pharmaceutical where students get their medicine from the school nurse based on their HIPAA privacy-protected individual health plans.

“Both the Virginia School Board Assn. and the Virginia Education Assn. spoke in favor of the bill in subcommittee,” said Sturtevant's legislative aide Nikki Thacker.

The bill requires the Virginia Dept. of Health Professions, with input from the Dept. of Education, to develop and make available to school boards, a standardized form to be completed by the certification issuing physician and the dispensing pharmaceutical processor.

“The form cannot be implemented until after the law becomes effective July 1, 2019 and the oils will likely not be available for obtaining from a pharmaceutical processor until later this fall,” said Diane Powers, director of communications at Virginia Dept. of Health Professions.

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“We are incredibly pleased that the Virginia General Assembly recognized the importance of ensuring students have access to these medicines without disruption to the school day,” said Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director of Virginia’s National Organization of Marijuana Reform Laws. “Now, instead of parents having to take their children off campus to administer their medicine, school health care providers will be able to provide necessary doses just as they would any other pharmaceutical.”

Patients who have already received a physician's recommendation for medical cannabis will need to return to their doctors to have the form completed once their school board policies are in place.

This will make Virginia the fourth state in the nation to allow school health care providers to administer services. Currently, Colorado, Illinois and Florida are the only states that allow school nurses to administer medical cannabis to students.

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Delaware, Maine and New Jersey allow medical cannabis use at school. Washington allows schools to create their own policies, and West Virginia directed education officials to create rules for use at school.

Pending any emergency enactment by the governor, generally a bill takes effect July 1.

Staunton medical cannabis dispensary

By the end of the year, Staunton will be home to one of five pharmaceutical processors licensed by the Board of Pharmacy to operate marijuana growing facilities in the state. Illinois-based medical cannabis company PharmaCann will open a facility at Green Hills Industrial Park off Technology Drive and Commerce Avenue and provide a medical dispensary on site.

More:The business of growing pot, legally

Patients will come into the dispensary and purchase finished, packaged products from the PharmaCann line, according to Jeremy Unruh, director of public and regulatory affairs for PharmaCann.

Another bill recently passed by the Senate expanded the current definition of medical cannabis oils that will allow pharmaceutical processors to provide full therapeutic-strength medical cannabis products. Pharmacists at licensed facilities like PharmaCann will be able to provide preparations typically dispensed at compounding pharmacies like compound creams, sprays, capsules, suppositories and lozenges.

Currently, health care insurance companies do not provide coverage for patients to use medical cannabis oils, so any associated costs are out-of-pocket expenses.

Medical marijuana in Virginia

Medical cannabis oils CBD and THC-A

CBD, or cannabidiol, is a cannabinoid in a family of compounds in cannabis sativa (marijuana) plants. THC-A, or tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, is another cannabinoid compound. Both medical cannabis oils are non-intoxicating and legal in Virginia.

CBD may positively impact a wide array of health conditions:

ALS

anorexia

arthritis

autism

anxiety

cancer

chronic pain

Crohn’s disease

depression

diabetes

epilepsy

glaucoma

heart disease

IBS

Lyme disease

migraines

MS

nausea

neuropathy

Parkinson’s

seizures

skin conditions

sleep issues

stroke

traumatic brain injury

ulcerative colitis

conditions caused by inflammation or an overactive immune response

With the exception of a medication used to treat epileptic seizures, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not endorse any medical cannabis oils.

Read:Nurses share the real back-to-school health concerns

Reporter Monique Calello can be reached at mcalello@newsleader.com. Follow her on Twitter @moniquecalello.