Kansas Senate holds second day of marijuana hearings, draws criticism for one-sided testimony
For the second day in a row, senators sat inside a committee room inside the Kansas Statehouse for an informational hearing on marijuana legalization, and again, the comments were largely negative.
“I do believe that perhaps one of the biggest threats that we face to the quality of life in Kansas is the proposed legalization of marijuana," Katie Whisman with Stand up for Kansas told the committee.
Thursday’s session include testimony from both people in the medical field and state law enforcement agencies who all raised some sort of concern with any potential bill to legalize medical marijuana in the state.
Ed Klump with the Kansas Sheriff’s association said his organization's “position on legalizing marijuana, whether it be medical or recreational or whatever you want to call it is we have been opposed to this since the first efforts to do this came up."
Towards the end of the hearing, Democratic Senator Cindy Holscher brought up the fact that every speaker over the two days had been opposed to marijuana laws, asking the chairman “as far as the hearing itself, and the process was this through invitation only, and I'm curious when we're hearing from proponents.”
The committee’s chair, Republican Mike Thompson, says he invited these speakers because proponents had the chance to speak in the past. “We had a special committee on over this, October, December had four different days, where there were proponents in that. So this was allowing the side to educate us on some of the negative impacts that we've seen in other states.”
Holscher says a lot of concerns raised over the last two can be addressed. ”I think this is my fourth or fifth information session on the topic, where a lot of these issues and concerns that were brought up have been addressed and answered and bills drafted accordingly.”
There are two medical marijuana bills that have been introduced to the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee last month. Both have yet to receive a hearing