“Marijuana possession? We’re not going to do it. Our law enforcement partners are pretty much on board with this.
By Blaise Measa, The Kansas City Beacon
Missouri’s dispensaries, which sell legal cannabis in every strip mall, are within an hour of more than 1,000,000 Kansans.
Kansas has fewer arrests for marijuana offenses despite the easy availability of legal weed. Kansas is one of 11 states which outlaws marijuana for medical use. Prosecutors, however, are still required to enforce this state-wide prohibition.
While statistics are still forming in a bordering state where three states have legalized medical and recreational marijuana sales, arrests for cannabis-related charges and seizures of illegal weed are on the decline, or at least leveling off.
Missouri’s first cannabis sale was legalized in early February of 2023. Kansas residents were able to drive across and purchase it immediately, but they risked arrest if brought their gummies or joints over the state border.
The Beacon requested arrest data for 2022 and 2023 from law enforcement agencies located in eastern Kansas. The data for arrests in Kansas is not complete.
Kansas Bureau of Investigation arrest data does not track arrests based on drug type, and agency numbers for 2023 are still incomplete. Kansas Highway Patrol said it would also take time to get statistics on each drug arrest, but that data on major seizures showed a slight decrease in 2023.
Compare some departments:
- In 2022, the Kansas City Police Department arrested 186 individuals for marijuana. This number increased to 241 by 2023. This spike is mainly due to a rise in arrests made in July. The amount of marijuana seized decreased from 108 to 22 pounds.
- Overland Park Police went from 189 arrests of selling and using in the year 2022 to 166 arrests by 2023.
- Pittsburg Police Department made 35 arrests in 2022, but only 18 for 2023. The number of seizures increased from 2,541 g to 6,686 g, again due to a month with large seizures.
- Leavenworth Police cited 23 people in 2022 for marijuana and 28 in 2023.
- Kansas Highway Patrol reported 76 marijuana seizures of significance in 2022, and 68 in 2023. The Kansas Highway Patrol said that a significant marijuana seizure would be one with more than a pound of weed. It is unlikely to include arrests made for simple possession. However, getting data on each arrest can be difficult.
The plateau in arrests is a welcome change for advocates who believe that over-policing marijuana only creates problems, and it’s especially problematic for minorities. Last year, the highway patrol lost a case over a unconstitutional practice that it used to check drivers for marijuana.
The uneven pattern of marijuana arrests cannot be explained by a single factor. One agency claimed that it cites people rather than arrests them for possession. One agency claimed it had a shortage of staff and cannabis was not its top priority. The officers and prosecutors said that they were not ignoring this issue. However, some offices only pursue drug charges when other criminal charges are also involved in a case.
John Lacy , spokesperson for Overland Park Police, told Fox 4 Kansas City in last Year: “We must have probable cause.” In other words, the driver must be speeding. “They have to be doing an illegal lane-change, or something of the sort.”
Lacy stated that his agency is more concerned about serious felonies.
Douglas County District Attorney’s Office is one of few agencies with a policy public on marijuana. In the policy, it was stated that the DA’s Office is not interested in prosecuting weed-related charges.
Suzanne Valdez is the Douglas County District Attorney. She said that she inherited an existing policy and did not see any reason to change it.
Her office continues to pursue drug dealers who sell hard drugs. But she says that stomping on users is a wasteful use of the limited resources and time available to prosecutors.
It takes time to prosecute a single possession case. The KBI must test the samples. This agency tests sexual assault kits as well as evidence in murder cases. It’s possible that a marijuana sample gets lost in the shuffle.
“Marijuana possession? Nope, we’re just not doing it,” Valdez said. “Our law-enforcement partners have accepted this pretty much.”
Wichita will decriminalize marijuana in 2022. The legality of medical marijuana is less clear at the state level.
Kansas Statehouse is now considering a bill that would alter the way drugs are classified as criminals. This effort was part of a series of failed attempts to legalize medical cannabis by state legislators in recent years.
The change’s supporters say that the public is clearly in favor of legal marijuana. Just look at the Kansas license plates displayed at Missouri dispensaries. According to the Kansas Speaks poll, 67 percent Kansas residents are in favor of recreational marijuana, while 12 percent were neutral, 17 percent opposed, and 4 percent were undecided.
The political struggle will not stop.
“We’ve addressed this subject before, and we will tackle it again,” stated Speaker of the House Dan Hawkins. He is a Wichita Republican.
The Republican-controlled Kansas House has passed out measures to legalize medical weed, but the Republican-controlled Kansas Senate has blocked that.
Hawkins stated, “They’re getting closer.” “We will have our chance.”
This article was originally published on The Kansas City Beacon . is an online news outlet that focuses on local journalism and in-depth reporting in the public’s interest.
The post Kansas’s Cannabis Arrests Have Reached a ‘Plateau” After Missouri Legalized Marijuana first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
