FORGET FREEDOM

lorida-based high school dean Mike Hickman is a military veteran who was fired in mid-November 2020 due to his consumption of medical, the Marion County School Board offered to suspend rather than fire him if he agreed to stop using medical cannabis—to which he refused. Hickman explained that cannabis helps him deal with chronic pain as a result of combat-wound surgeries. The issue was taken to court by the school board for further recommendation. Judge Suzanne Van Wyk wrote in her eight-page recommendation that it would be unfair for Hickman to be punished for cannabis consumption but allowed to “continue teaching under the influence of opioid pain medications, which he took for years prior to the availability of medical marijuana.” Ultimately, it was the school board’s decision to make a call on the matter, and they unanimously voted to fire Hickman. Although medical cannabis is legal in Florida, employees are not safe from being persecuted for cannabis consumption, especially in a public-school district that fears being defunded by the federal government.