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11-year-old boy's life ruined over pot-like leaf

A young boy in Virginia was suspended after a leaf that looked similar to a pot leaf was found in his backpack.

The sixth grader, the son of two school teachers, was in the gifted-and-talented program at Bedford Middle School when the assistant principal found the leaf on the boy.

The 11-year-old was suspended for a year and forced to enroll in the district's alternative education program and be homeschooled.

The ordeal lead the boy to depression, to become withdrawn and suffer panic attacks.

He was even evaluated by a psychiatrist for substance abuse problems and worried his life was over and that he'd never get into college.

All this, even after the leaf found in his backpack test negative for marijuana three separate times.

The juvenile court dropped the case against the boy after the tests, but the school and community kept the punishments in place.

How the leaf was found in the 11-year-old's bag is still in dispute.

The school claims the boy was showing the leaf to classmates, claiming it was marijuana.

His parents say that he would never do that and that it had to have been planted in the bag as a joke.

The school district states a strict anti-drug policy that treats "imitation" drugs as if they were real drugs when deciding punishment.

So if a child possess a leaf that looks like pot (ie. maple, tomato) and jokes that it's marijuana, the child can be expelled.

Since the incident, the Virginia sixth grader has been allowed to return to school, though it is a different school, and is under rigid probation.

He will have to be searched for drugs, every day, before and after school until September when his probation is over.

The school's policy on drugs is apparently fairly common and according to Bedford's lawyer, Jim Guynn, a "pretty standard policy across the Commonwealth."

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