Story Archive

Family Values

When law enforcement officers and counselors delivered some drug “education” in his class, one 11-year-old dissented, his mother said — and as authorities tell the story, he said drug use was common in his home. His mother, Shona Banda, has written a book telling how she used cannabis oil for her Crohn’s disease. Police searched their home and found pot and equipment for making cannabis oil. “The most important thing here is the child’s well-being,” said Capt. Randy Ralston of the Garden City, Kan., police. So while criminal charges weren’t immediately pressed — medical marijuana is legal under the laws of roughly half the states, but not Kansas — the boy was taken into custody and released to his father. And when he went back to his mother (his parents are divorced), they took him into custody again. (AC/CBS & AP, Washington Post, Kansas City Star) ...Because that clearly does more for his well-being than letting him stay with a mother who commits crimes they don’t even think are worth prosecuting.