Marijuana is legal in 23 states for medical use, and it is legal in Washington and Colorado for recreational use. In California, it is legal to smoke marijuana in the privacy of your home.

But at no time is it legal to smoke marijuana in public with or without a medical card. Two Bakersfield College students found that out the hard way.

On Feb. 18, 2015, at about 1 p.m. in the student parking lot across from the swimming pools, director of Public Safety Chris Counts caught two students smoking marijuana.

“Even with a medical card, marijuana is not allowed on campus to use or to have on your person,” Counts said. “No exceptions.”

Counts continued, “I catch students smoking all the time. They think with that medical card they are legal and won’t get in any trouble, so they do it right in front of everybody, and I have to bust them.”

After asking a few dozen students at BC if they smoke marijuana, the majority of them said that they do. And the students who said they don’t smoke it, said they had tried it before.

There are a number of medical marijuana shops in Bakersfield. The shops have green crosses on them that designate what they are, and some have people on street corners holding signs with green crosses and pointing to the shops.

A visit to one of the shops shows that marijuana has a lot of different names and has a lot of different methods that disguise the use of it.

It can be used by smoking it, drinking it or using vapors. It comes in soda, candy, wax, tea, and many other forms.