If you plan on toking up at a high school or college football tailgate this fall, you may want to think again. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry is warning high school and college football tailgaters that smoking weed on or near campus could land you in jail.
"As football season approaches, we want to remind everyone that this legislative session, we worked hard and passed a bill that now is in law that increases the penalties on those who possess illegal drugs on our school campuses and our college campuses," Landry said in a video posted on social media.
Under Act 305, authored by Rep. Gabe Firment (R-Pollock) and which took effect on August 1, anyone caught with cannabis within 2,000 feet of a school faces up to one year in jail and $1,000 in fines.
"This increases the penalty, especially for those who are in possession with marijuana and try to party with marijuana during our football season," Landry said.
The law does not specifically mention THC beverages or gummies. According to one legal analyst says, the law makes no exceptions for anyone who keeps or uses weed inside his or her own home.
"I would expect that the courts would apply the law as written," Loyola University law professor Dane Ciolino said. "The law, on its face, does not carve out private homes near school zones."
The new law appears to contradict other state statues that decriminalize cannabis use and possession. However, Ciolino says he expects the state to prevail if anyone challenges the new law in court.
"It's within the (state's) legislative prerogative to make drug use--marijuana use--illegal all across the state if it chose to do so," Ciolino said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see challenges to anything, but it certainly has a rational basis, and that's all the Constitution's due process clause requires in this sort of regulation."
Ciolino added that there's no constitutional right to toke up, giving Louisiana lawmakers more leeway when regulating drugs.
"Now contrast firearm-free zones around schools: those expressly carve out private homes, and the U. S. Constitution's Second Amendment would provide homeowners the right to keep guns in their homes notwithstanding any state legislation to the contrary. So, this drug regulation, unlike firearm regulation, is something the state clearly can do."
