Substitute teacher suspended for bringing 46 grams of weed to school

Disciplinary action was meaded out this month to a substitute teacher who admitted bringing cannabis onto a school parking lot, long before recreational legalization in Canada.

Eugenio Alfonso Bahamonde is a former teacher for the Surrey School District in British Columbia.

On November 7, 2012, he was working as a substitute teacher at a secondary school in the area. A document from the British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation says that he drove to work in a 2002 BMW X5 and parked in on school property. Inside the car was a gym bag with 45.6 grams of marijuana in plastic bags, $1,440 in cash, an electronic scale, and rolling papers.

After the end of the school day, police reportedly noticed Bahmonde park his car in the area of School Avenue and Kerr Street in Vancouver, near an elementary school.

Officers say they “observed another male get into Bahamonde’s car and then exit a few minutes later.” The teacher then drove away.

Shortly after, he was pulled over by police and his car was searched. The document says that he was arrested and charged with Possession of marijuana and Possession for the Purposes of Trafficking (PPT).

One month later, on December 11, 2012, Bahamonde was suspended without pay.

He was acquitted in 2015 on the ground that his arrest was “unlawful” and that “the evidence seized from his vehicle after his arrest was not admissible.” Last year, however, on June 22, 2018, Bahamonde was fired by the Surrey School District.

The document says that he admits to being “unlawfully in possession” of the cannabis. The former substitute teacher claims that he possessed it for “medical reasons” although he didn’t have any of the necessary authorization that was needed.

As a result, he’ll face a one-month suspension of his Teachers Certificate, which will take place from September 3, 2019, to October 2, 2019.