Broader legalization of medical marijuana considered unlikely in 2016 session
by Andy Marso, KHI News Service
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles by the KHI News Service previewing health-related issues that the Kansas Legislature will face in its 2016 session.
In a house at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in a suburb of Colorado Springs, a “marijuana refugee” who may spur a change in Kansas law is now 4 years old and improving cognitively.
Otis Reed, whose parents moved from Baldwin City to Colorado in search of a cannabis cure for the dozens of seizures he suffers every day, is slowly being weaned off ineffective pharmaceutical treatments and on to an oil derived from marijuana plants.
“When you’re dealing with something like uncontrollable seizures, there are ups and downs. But overall things are definitely up for us here and up for Otis here in Colorado,” Otis’ father, Ryan Reed, said in a phone interview. “He’s got the best quality of life he’s ever had.”
Back in Kansas, the chances of non-intoxicating hemp oil becoming legal for the treatment of seizures are greater than they’ve ever been.
Last year the House voted 81-36 in favor of House Bill 2049, which combined the hemp oil provision with legalization of hemp for industrial use and a lessening of penalties for first and second convictions of possessing small amounts of marijuana.
The bill was introduced by Rep. John Wilson, a Lawrence Democrat who represents the district where the Reeds lived before they moved to Colorado. Wilson calls it “Otis’ Law.”
Barring a veto by Gov. Sam Brownback, the bill needs only a passing vote in the Senate to become law. But this is the second year in a two-year legislative cycle, so if it doesn’t pass this session, proponents would have to start over with a new House and Senate.
Senate President Susan Wagle and other Republican legislative leaders have said they’re shooting for a short session focused on closing a state budget deficit without raising taxes after last year’s record-long session.
Wilson said that could stymie the bill, or it could help it. Only “a handful” of legislators actually have sway over the budget, he said, because of the way the Legislature has written its appropriations rules. That leaves a lot of people with time on their hands.
“We might find ourselves in a situation where, because most people in the Legislature can’t work on the big issue, they want to be able to kind of coalesce around something,” Wilson said. “We might find that in the Senate, in particular, they might have the time and energy to focus on the medical hemp issue. But, then again, I could also be wrong.”
The Senate path
A spokeswoman for Wagle said via email that the Wichita Republican has no comment on HB 2049.
Wagle placed the bill in the Senate Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee after it passed the House in May. She and the chairman of that committee, Sen. Greg Smith, took heat from proponents for not scheduling a hearing on it as the tax and budget impasse stretched the session into June.
Smith said he heard the complaints, but there was little he could do given how late in the session it was.
“I just told them, ‘Look, I know it’s important to you, so this will be the first bill the corrections committee takes up next session,’” Smith said last week.
He said that’s still the plan, and hearings on the bill are likely to commence the second week of session, after legislators return from the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday break.
Smith said the committee will take testimony on all parts of the bill, but he expects the bulk of it to focus on hemp oil, which also is called cannabidoil or CBD.
“There’s much more interest in the CBD part of it than anything,” Smith said.
A committee hearing does not guarantee the committee will vote on or “work” the bill, and passage in committee does not guarantee the Senate will take it up or pass it.
Kansas remains far more skeptical of cannabis than its neighbor to the west, which has legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use as well as medical use.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced last week that his office is beginning a study of the detrimental effects of pot from Colorado crossing the Kansas border — an announcement that drew a rebuke from a medical marijuana advocacy group called Bleeding Kansas.
The type of broad-based medical marijuana legalization that group wants has never gained legislative traction in Kansas, though Democrats have introduced it several times.
But political winds are shifting nationwide, with 23 states and Washington, D.C., now having legalized medical marijuana in some form.
In Kansas, even some Republican legislators with “tough-on-crime” reputations are expressing more openness.
Rep. John Rubin, a Republican from Shawnee who proposed the sentencing changes in HB 2049 as a way to free much-needed prison beds for violent offenders, said last summer that the state needs to “seriously consider” changing its medical marijuana laws.
Senate Vice President Jeff King, a Republican from Independence who sits on Smith’s committee, said he doesn’t think the Legislature will support broad legalization of medical marijuana any time soon.
But he said Wilson’s bill is different in that it legalizes only a form of cannabis that cannot produce a high and only for a specific medical condition.
“I’m open to a discussion on that,” King said. “Any solution would have to be very narrowly tailored and very specifically focused on those kids that are really suffering. If I were a parent of a child suffering like that, I would want the state to be open to explore all options.”
The evidence
Whether the hemp oil bill passes or stalls this session, expect groups like Bleeding Kansas to continue to push for broad medical marijuana legalization.
The legal saga of Shona Banda, a Garden City mother, has stirred passions in the pro-cannabis community. Banda was outspoken online about using marijuana to treat her Crohn’s disease, but lost custody of her son after he talked about it at school. She’s facing five marijuana-related criminal charges with an arraignment scheduled for Monday.
Ryan Reed said that based on what he’s seen in Colorado, he’s also in favor of legalizing marijuana for treating a range of conditions like Crohn’s, post-traumatic stress disorder and Parkinson’s disease.
“I’ve seen it do some amazing things out here,” Reed said. “I would like to see it broaden out into other issues people are having.”
But skeptics say the pace of medical marijuana legalization is outstripping the evidence of its effectiveness.
A limited study of hemp oil in 2013 spurred widespread hope when 80 percent of the children who participated showed some reduction in their seizures. But the sample was small and subsequent studies have shown a success rate of closer to 30 percent.
Studies on Crohn’s and other illnesses have been similarly limited in size, in large part because the federal Drug Enforcement Agency still categorizes marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
“The federal restrictions on that type of research are pretty substantial,” King said. “Oftentimes at levels of government you’re blamed for what the levels of government above you won’t let you do, and I think this is one of those instances where the federal government has really restricted our ability to prospectively get data on these issues.”
Researchers from the Kansas Health Institute, the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service, were unable to find enough reliable data to analyze marijuana’s potential medical benefits.
But by studying states that legalized medical marijuana broadly, they found that marijuana-related car crashes and hospitalizations due to accidental ingestion tended to increase after legalization while crime and illegal consumption did not.
But groups like Bleeding Kansas argue that abuse of legal prescription drugs is far more dangerous to society, and marijuana could be a safer alternative.
The debate continues, nationally and in Kansas, but Reed said he sees the tide turning in favor of legal cannabis treatments.
“It’s hard to argue against it,” Reed said, “once people get past that stigma of, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s marijuana.’”
The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.
Gun control and immigration were two of the residents’ concerns at U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran’s town hall meeting this morning at Donnelly College’s event center in Kansas City, Kan.
Sen. Moran, whose Senate seat is up for election on Aug. 2 and Nov. 8 this year, answered residents’ questions before heading back to Washington, D.C. More than 100 persons were in attendance.
Fielding questions that were both in favor of more gun control and in favor of recognition of Kansas’ concealed carry permits in Virginia, which recently decided not to recognize several states’ permits, Sen. Moran said he supports reciprocity on states recognizing permits, but he doubted if that would happen while President Obama is in office and while 60 votes are needed to pass legislation in the Senate. The votes are not there currently, according to Sen. Moran.
An audience member asked Sen. Jerry Moran a question about Virginia’s announcement that it would not honor Kansas concealed carry permits. The forum was at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert) Sister Therese Bangert asked Sen. Jerry Moran about gun control at a forum Monday at Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
Sister Therese Bangert said she agreed with President Obama’s executive action on gun control.
“We live in a community where there are way too many guns, and way too much gun violence, and we lose children in this community from gun violence,” she said. She has served as a police chaplain and said she believes concealed weapons would be a threat to police officers. “We have too many guns,” she said.
Sen. Moran said the president’s plan so far seems to be just playing around the edges. He said he didn’t know what else the president would have to say. Few would disagree that there are too many guns, he added.
“The question is, can you solve the violence by eliminating the gun?” Sen. Moran, whose residence is Hays, Kan., said. He said he worries that when the solution is a restriction on guns, that the rights would be taken away of the people who abide by the law, and it doesn’t change the availability of guns to people who don’t care about the law.
“So we end up diminishing somebody’s rights in hopes that we are protecting ourselves, and yet we have people who don’t really care what the law is. Guns will be available to them,” he said. He added he felt comfortable with limiting access to guns to people with a history of violence and mental illness.
He also criticized the use of executive orders.
“What I learned about government in my high school government class is not being exercised by this president and this administration,” Sen. Moran said. “Congress makes the laws and the president executes them.”
The focus should be on Congress determining the policy and the president executing it, he said. Even if one agrees the president’s policies are right, if the policies don’t go through the process of Congress passing the law, and the president executing the law, then something is being done wrong that is damaging to the constitution and freedoms, he said.
The audience question, or statement, that got the most applause Monday at Sen. Jerry Moran’s town hall forum concerned immigration. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
‘Immigration needs to be better handled’
An audience member said in Kansas City, Kan., a large number of international refugees have contributed to the community, begun careers and started businesses. Far from being a threat, the refugees are making the city, state and country a better place, he said.
He asked Sen. Moran not to let Kansas sway with the political winds of fear, hate and greed. He was confident in the screening process. “Don’t let our state turn its back on the thriving refugee population that is already here, and the benefits that will come from us welcoming more,” he said to a lot of applause.
Sen. Moran said immigration needs to be better handled by the federal government. He said America wants to be welcoming people who are in danger and who are fleeing their countries because of fear of persecution.
“The only thing you said that causes me pause is your certainty of the vetting process, and I need to be certain myself of that,” Sen. Moran said. “My goal would never be to single someone out because of their religion. My goal would be to single out people who come here as a threat to Americans and those who live here.”
He said there is a need to find out who is a threat and keep them out of the United States. Religion is not a criterion by which people should be judged, he added.
“If you compare this process (entering the country) to other things that occur in our immigration system, our immigration system is totally broken,” Sen. Moran said in answer to a question about illegally entering the country. “It all needs our attention.”
Most people here illegally are here because they once came here legally and outstayed the permission for them to be here, he noted.
He said he would like the Department of Homeland Security to come to Congress and brief them on security, so he could reach the conclusion there is a satisfactory vetting process, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Sen. Moran said it is not likely that immigration policies will be fixed until there is a new president. He said he does not think there is enough goodwill between the House and Senate to accomplish anything.
While he is critical of the president for stepping beyond his authority, he is also critical of Congress for creating the gaps that allowed him to do that, he said. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to do anything, after a rules change, he said, and that has prevented some issues from advancing. He supported elimination of the 60-vote rule after the Iran nuclear issue surfaced.
“I’m all about trying to get a Senate that works,” he said. “I thought that when given the opportunity, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you didn’t go there to do nothing, you went there to advance things you believe in. I’ve yet to see enough of that happen, but I’m not willing to give up yet.”
The challenge on immigration policy is to do it in a way that does not reward more illegal behavior, he said. He said the general sentiment of Kansans seems to be that they would welcome anyone who is here to better themselves and contribute to the community, and not take advantage of the system.
Sen. Jerry Moran listened to audience questions Monday at a town hall forum at Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
Help for entrepreneurs
Sen. Moran said he has worked in the Senate to try to help entrepreneurs. He said growing the economy would help the United States pay the debt and put people to work, also. A question from the audience pointed out that some “angel credit” funds at the state level were drying up.
He said he used reports from the Kauffman Foundation to help put together federal legislation and is promoting the third version of the Startup 3.0 bill. So far it has not passed.
“Entrepreneurship can be a variety of things, but it’s somebody pursuing their dream, and putting themselves and others to work,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran talked about issues at a town hall forum Monday at Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
‘Many veterans are falling through the cracks’
Sen. Moran said he has helped get services for military veterans.
“The VA is overwhelmed, many veterans are falling through the cracks,” Sen. Moran said. He said he favors a program allowing veterans to receive services at their hometown hospitals as well as through the VA.
“We are working our way, individual veteran by veteran, trying to get services,” he said.
Earmark legislation
In answer to a question on the reintroduction of earmarks, Sen. Moran said earmarks were abused, overused and set the stage for excess spending. He said Congress was right to end earmarks, but he also thinks in the absence of earmarks, Congress has turned spending decisions over to the administration. He said he is willing to sit down and figure out if there is a way to have earmarks.
He said it was particularly objectionable that there were earmarks for private businesses, and that ought to be off the table. Earmarks were so abused, that before going back to the path, Congress should sit down and figure out the right way to do it, he added. Also, he said spending decisions recently have benefited “bluer” states than Kansas.
EPA regulations: ‘The question is how you do it’
Sen. Moran, in answer to a question, discussed Environmental Protection Agency regulations discouraging the use of coal. As natural gas replaces it, natural gas prices are expected to increase. He said he had many discussions with Board of Public Utilities officials concerned about the effect on residents here as utility costs increase.
“Clean water and air is important to everybody, the question is how you do it,” he said. And how to do it so it isn’t so damaging to people and the economy, he added.
“Sometimes the policies that are designed to do good end up being the most damaging policies to the people who have the hardest time paying their bills,” he said. “Wealthy people will be able to figure out how to get by with increasing gas and increasing utility costs, but poor people much less so.”
Policies coming out of Washington are too often those that drive up the costs of energy, he said.
KCKCC President Doris Givens, right, asked U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran about more funding for community colleges at a town hall forum Monday at Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert) Funding for college education
Kansas City Kansas Community College President Doris Givens asked Sen. Moran about federal funding for college education. There is currently a discussion about completely funding community college education across the country. One of the major reasons students do not continue at community colleges is the funding, she said.
Sen. Moran said to his knowledge, the administration had not actively pushed the issue, and Congress had not paid significant attention to it.
He suggested studying the reduction of time it takes to get a degree in order to reduce costs associated with it. “We need to look for ways,” he said.
“The best thing we can do for graduates of our schools is to have a growing economy in which jobs are available,” he said. That would allow them to better pay back the debt, and find job satisfaction.
“I would not think free tuition of community colleges is in the near future. If it develops, it would be more likely at the state level than federal,” he said. Community colleges are not federal institutions, but state institutions, and decisions ought to be made there, he added.
Audience members listened to Sen. Jerry Moran’s town hall forum Monday at Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
Presidential campaign endorsements
After the meeting, Sen. Moran said he would not be endorsing anyone in the Republican presidential primary campaign. He is not against any of them, he just doesn’t want to single any of them out, he added.
Social Security raises
In answer to a Wyandotte Daily question afterward concerning elderly residents who received no Social Security cost-of-living raises this year but who face electric and natural gas bill increases, Sen. Moran said his position is that he supports changing the formula that determines how much Social Security they will receive in Social Security payments.
No one can believe the costs for senior citizens have not gone up, and much of the costs are related to health care, he said.
Edwardsville Mayor John McTaggart, left, chatted with U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran before Monday’s forum at Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kan. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
