Vitti calls on leaders to target edible marijuana use by students in school

The head of Michigan's largest school district is calling on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and a host of federal, state and local elected leaders to enact immediate policy changes to address the rise of edible marijuana use among underage high school students.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District, issued the plea Thursday in a letter to leaders, explaining that since Michigan’s legalization of recreation marijuana for those 21 and older in 2019, day-to-day operations in the district are being significantly disrupted by the use of recreational marijuana products by students.

Vitti said the district has seen an "alarming" increase in the use of marijuana-infused products and vapes containing marijuana by students, and a significant increase in drug-related infractions at schools.

The district recorded 289 drug-related incidents in the 2019-20 school year, Vitti said. That number has increased to 1,735 incidents in the last two school years, between 2021 and 2023.

"This school year alone, we have already faced 745 drug-related infractions as of last week," Vitti said in his letter. "A week of school rarely passes where a student is not taken to the hospital due to intentional or unintentional consumption of edibles."

"This trend is unacceptable and calls for an immediate policy intervention," Vitti said.

Vitti said part of the problem is that edible marijuana packaging is indistinguishable from traditional candy packaging, making it easier for the product to be passed around and handled in schools and in some cases, mistaken for actual candy inside school.

Vitti has proposed three measures, including new laws mandating clear packaging on marijuana products and rules that prohibit candy-like packaging to reduce confusion. He also is asking for funding for detection systems for schools that comes from marijuana sales profits and taxes and a public awareness campaign to educate families about the risk of unsupervised access.

All seven member of the elected school board also signed the letter.

Whitmer and Duggan were not immediately available for comment Thursday.

David Harns, a spokesperson for the state's Cannabis Regulatory Agency, said on Friday that Michigan already has rules in place that ban edible marijuana producers from making an edible in a shape or with a label that would appeal to minors aged 17 years or younger.

Rules also prohibit products associated with or containing cartoons, caricatures, toys, designs, shapes, labels or packaging that would appeal to minors, Harns said, and packages that can be easily confused with a commercially available food product. The use of the word candy or candies on the packaging or labeling is prohibited.

"Enforcement of these rules has been — and continues to be — a high priority for the CRA for years," Harns said in a statement on Friday.

Harns said for the 2023 state fiscal year, more than $290.3 million was available for distribution from the Marihuana Regulation Fund. Of that, $101.6 million was sent to the School Aid Fund for K-12 education.

jchambers@detroitnews.com