cannabisnews.com: No Ribbon for Pot Project





No Ribbon for Pot Project
Posted by CN Staff on February 07, 2003 at 08:21:46 PT
By Renee Koury, Mercury News
Source: San Jose Mercury 
Belmont eighth-grader Veronica Mouser may have won the battle to get her project on medicinal marijuana entered in her school science fair last week, but it did not place.Mouser did not win a ribbon for her project examining possible medicinal benefits of pot. She received only an acknowledgment as a ``participant'' at the Ralston Middle School science fair, so her work won't go on to the county or state competitions.
Veronica claimed that the unfavorable mark for her medicinal pot project was retaliation for her widely publicized challenge to her principal, who refused last month to let her enter the project at all. That decision was eventually reversed, but not before a big investigation and a national media spotlight on the dispute and the school.``I don't think my project was judged fairly at all,'' Veronica said, adding that a participant medal carries points equivalent to a ``D'' grade. ``I thought it was judged poorly because of how I got to enter when they didn't want me there in the first place. It was one of the things they were in control of.''But Assistant Superintendent Marcia Harter said the district deliberately recruited three outside judges to evaluate Veronica's project and several others in the fair to ensure fair and objective evaluations.``Usually they're judged by a team of our own, but to be fair we decided we'd have an outside team to judge a section that included Veronica's,'' she said. ``Hers was not one of the projects that won a ribbon.''Projects on viscosity, spices, cleanliness, light, nerves, fluid flow, the greenhouse effect, eye color and SamTrans travel time won the top awards at the Ralston fair and will move on to the bigger competitions.Ralston has about 800 students enrolled in grades six to eight. School officials said 246 projects were entered in the school science fair, and nine -- three from each grade -- were awarded prizes. The winning entries will go on to competition at the San Mateo County science fair.Principal Deborah Ferguson initially said Veronica's project failed to meet science fair guidelines for performing a scientific procedure. Because marijuana is still illegal under federal law -- even though Californians sanction it for medicinal use -- it would be a problem for an eighth-grader to experiment on it, the school decided.The undercurrent of concern was also the possibility that a project on medicinal pot could be perceived as condoning drug use in an environment where school officials are striving to battle drug use among teens and enforce a no-tolerance policy.But after school officials reviewed Veronica's work, and media flocked to cover the story, Superintendent Anne Campbell allowed the project to be entered in the fair. She determined that Veronica had conducted scientific research by keeping a log of effects of pot on three medicinal marijuana patients but did not use the weed herself or give it to any research subjects.The grand prize for eighth grade went to Becky Lent, whose project was called ``Do Sizzling Spheres Sink Swiftly in a Syrupy Soup?'' and examined whether heated objects move faster through dense liquids than cold objects. Her project won the grand prize for eighth grade, but she said the crowds at the fair surrounded Veronica's controversial medicinal pot display.Note: Belmont eighth-grader claims retaliation.Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)Author:  Renee Koury, Mercury NewsPublished:  Friday, February 07, 2003Copyright: 2003 San Jose Mercury NewsContact: letters sjmercury.comWebsite: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/Related Articles & Web Site:Medicinal Cannabis Research Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/research.htmProject On Pot Gets OK http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15323.shtmlStudent Wins Battle To Allow Pot Project in Fairhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15321.shtmlPot Project Pulled - San Jose Mercury Newshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15301.shtml 
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Comment #1 posted by delariand on February 07, 2003 at 11:05:58 PT
A trend...
"The grand prize for eighth grade went to Becky Lent, whose project was called ``Do Sizzling Spheres Sink Swiftly in a Syrupy Soup?'' and examined whether heated objects move faster through dense liquids than cold objects. Her project won the grand prize for eighth grade, but she said the crowds at the fair surrounded Veronica's controversial medicinal pot display."It's nice to know that a glitzy name and good marketing will always win over legitimate, useful research in this country. Medical marijuana could help relieve suffering for tens of thousands of people in this country, how does this experiment with dense liquids benefit anyone?
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