Top Kansas Official Tells Lawmakers It Would Be ‘Easier’ To Legalize Recreational Marijuana Instead Of Starting With Medical Program

As Kansas lawmakers once again take up the issue of marijuana reform, a top state regulator is advising that it would be “easier to implement” recreational legalization first, rather than start with a medical cannabis program as other states have done.

Ahead of the 2025 session, the legislature’s Special Committee on Medical Marijuana held an exhaustive, seven-hour hearing on Wednesday to gather input from state agencies, law enforcement groups, stakeholders and the general public on the best path forward for reform.

Members heard a mix of testimony in support of and in opposition to enacting legalization, with many officials offering guidance on their departments’ individual needs and recommendations for policies around regulatory models, qualifying conditions, licensing, labeling and more.

Sen. Michael Fagg (R), chair of the special committee, said at the end of Wednesday’s meeting that members will be holding a second hearing on medical cannabis issues, but he didn’t specify when that would take place. He said “we’ll have a discussion at the backside of the next one as to how we should go from there.”

One of the more notable pieces of testimony came from the head of the Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Division of the Department of Revenue, which several prior bills have designated as the primary regulatory body for medical cannabis.

ABC Director Debbi Beavers said that while the committee is principally tasked with considering medical marijuana reform, from her agency’s perspective, “starting with recreational marijuana would be easier to implement.”

“There would also be a significant cost savings to the State because of the reduced number of new or modified systems, system interfaces and it would eliminate the need for some of the new positions in other agencies that the medical marijuana program will require,” she said.

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Beavers also said lawmakers should take regional dynamics into account, pointing out that if Nebraska voters approve medical marijuana legalization at the ballot next month, “Kansas will be completely surrounded by states who have authorized medical and/or recreational marijuana.”

“This leaves Kansas as an island without any type of marijuana that is legal,” she said. “We know that marijuana is here in Kansas. Are Kansas residents obtaining marijuana on the black market or from another state where they can legally purchase it?”

The Kansas Sentencing Commission’s director of research, John Grube, also addressed the regional interplay. Data shows felony marijuana convictions have “steadily decreased over the past three years” in Kansas, “suggesting a shift in both enforcement and sentencing practices.”

“This decline may be influenced by the legalization of marijuana in nearby states, particularly Missouri, which shares a border with Kansas and major population centers in Kansas are within the Kansas City metropolitan area,” he said. As marijuana becomes legal in close proximity to major population centers, law enforcement in Kansas may be less inclined to enforce marijuana-related offenses.”

Law enforcement organizations such as the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police generally testified in opposition to the prospect of medical cannabis legalization. The association’s legislative chair, Darrell Atteberry, said that while there’s “an increasing trend towards the legalization of medical marijuana,” it would “serve everyone well to consider that marijuana is not a cure for any illness or disease.”

“At most, in some cases such as those people suffering from nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy or seizures, marijuana is only palliative care,” he said. “The Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police urges you to not move forward with legalization concerning medical marijuana in the state of Kansas.”

The National MS Society shared a different perspective, voicing support for “the rights of people with MS to work with their healthcare providers to access treatments that safely and adequately manage the challenging symptoms of MS.”

“This includes support for access to cannabis derivatives for medical purposes when in accordance with the legal regulations of a state,” the group’s senior manager of advocacy, Lisbet Finseth, said.

Weldon Angelos, president of The Weldon Project and a recipient of a presidential pardon for a marijuana-related conviction under the Trump administration, also provided testimony to the committee, urging members “to consider the evidence and reject the misinformation that has surrounded this issue for too long.”

“Legalizing and regulating medical marijuana is a commonsense approach that will protect patients, improve public safety, and allow law enforcement to focus on the real threats facing our communities,” he said.

Another out-of-state perspective came from Utah Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers (R), a licensed pharmacist who shared takeaways from his state’s experience enacting medical marijuana legalization. He said he’s been working on cannabis issues in the legislature “since we first started talking about it,” describing it as “such a unique space to work in as a legislator.”

“It is so complex and there are so many angles that I often say it is like tip toeing through a mine field,” he said.

The Kansas Board of Pharmacy, for its part, is recommending that, “at a minimum,” any medical marijuana program that lawmakers enact requires patients to consult with a pharmacist before they can access cannabis, which the board says should be dispensed through licensed pharmacies.

But the board also said that, at the federal level, if the Justice Department’s proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is finalized, that “would still necessitate additional steps before the substance could be lawfully dispensed in Kansas.”

The legislature reconvenes in January, and the special committee chairman said Wednesday’s meeting and the second one to follow should be instructive to members as they craft and consider potential legislation to enact the reform.

Lawmakers have made several previous attempts to legalize medical marijuana without success, however. The House did pass a medical cannabis bill in 2021, but it stalled out in the Senate. And after numerous hearings on the issue, the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee voted to table a limited medical marijuana pilot program bill in March.

An effort to revive the medical cannabis bill on the Senate floor fell short in April.

That measure was filed about a month after the House rejected a Democratic lawmaker’s amendment to a broader drug scheduling bill that would have removed marijuana entirely from the state’s controlled substances law, effectively legalizing it.

After the Senate committee shelved the limited medical marijuana bill, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) issued a statement urging the public to contact their representatives to demand that they take the legislation back up for action, but that did not happen before the end of the legislative session.

Senate President Ty Masterson (R) said late last year he was open to a discussion about a limited medical marijuana program. But in January, he appeared less open to the idea, calling medical legalization a “nonstarter” and suggesting the policy change could lead to a surge in “gang activity” and put kids at risk.

He also suggested voters didn’t understand medical marijuana. “I think what people see when they think of medical, they’re thinking of, you know, palliative care and things like that,” Masterson said.

Masterson, who also helped kill the House-passed medical marijuana bill in 2021, has downplayed popular support for broader adult-use cannabis legalization, suggesting voters don’t understand the policy change.

“If you look at that question, I think most people would answer yes, but they don’t know what they’re actually saying yes to,” the Senate president said.

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A Kansas Speaks poll from last fall found that 67 percent of Kansans, including a majority of Republicans, support legalizing cannabis for all adults 21 and older.

Meanwhile, in her 2023 State of the State address, the governor said that there’s a “commonsense way to improve health care here in Kansas—and that’s to finally legalize medical marijuana.”

The governor also said in 2021 that she would be “enlisting the efforts of the people of Kansas who really want this” to pressure their lawmakers to get the reform enacted.

Also in 2022, then-House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer (D) and Assistant Minority Leader Jason Probst (D) said they wanted to let voters decide on legalizing medical and adult-use marijuana in the state.

The governor, for her part, previously pushed a separate proposal that would legalize medical cannabis and use the resulting revenue to support Medicaid expansion, with Rep. Brandon Woodard (D) filing the measure on the governor’s behalf.

Following President Joe Biden’s announcement in 2022 on pardoning people who’ve committed federal marijuana possession offenses and imploring governors to follow suit, Kelly said that her administration is “focused on legalizing medical marijuana so that Kansans with severe illnesses no longer have to suffer.

Kelly added that they will “continue to consider all clemency and pardon requests based on a complete and thorough review of the individual cases.”

The governor also said in 2020 that while she wouldn’t personally advocate for adult-use legalization, she wouldn’t rule out signing the reform into law if a reform bill arrived on her desk.

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Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.