Representatives from the Kansas Cannabis Coalition, Loud Light, and the ACLU of Kansas held an online meeting on Jan. 23 to discuss why they need to call on the Kansas House and Senate to move forward with medical cannabis. Initially, the day was intended to be a “day of action at the Capitol” in Topeka, Kansas, according to the Kansas Reflector, but due to unsafe weather conditions, the meeting was shifted to be held online instead.

During the meeting, some people spoke about how they or people they love have found relief in cannabis. Advocate Delaney Jones explained that his grandmother, who survived European concentration camps in World War II, suffered from late detection of pancreatic cancer. She was in intense pain and suffered from the side effects of opioids and chemotherapy, but finally found relief with cannabis oil. “It helped her get rid of the pain and the nausea, even the fatigue at times,” Jones explained. It did not have the side effects of opiate painkillers. We were super, super grateful to see really the magical work that marijuana did in her end-of-life care.”

Kansas Cannabis Coalition President Cheryl Kumberg said that five years ago she was assured by legislators that it would take one to two years to put together a medical cannabis bill. I’m here in open-mouth amazement that we are still discussing passing a medical marijuana bill,” said Kumberg. “It is just the same excuses all these years. The same rhetoric from opponents and legislators. We’re just like this little island.”

Due to the delay, cities in Kansas have created ordinances to decriminalize cannabis, but statewide legalization is long overdue. “We’ll just have this sort of understanding or unwritten rules and laws that we won’t prosecute cannabis,” said Kansans for Hemp and Kansas Cannabis Coalition member, Kelly Rippel. “It leads to inconsistency around enforcement, not only in communities, but also the district attorneys in counties. We need to have something on the books that says, ‘We are not going to criminalize this, especially for personal possession.’” Rippel added that legislators also need to focus on expunging cannabis-related convictions and record sealing.

As an example, Latanya Goodloe, Ladies That Lean executive director based out of Kansas City, Kansas, shared that she served four years in prison for possession and intent to sell. Although she completed her parole in 2009, she ran into challenges for having the felony on her record. Goodloe also believes that the conversation of legalization needs to be accompanied by law that rights the wrongs of the War on Drugs and pursues racial and economic justice. “No monopoly,” Goodloe explained. “Engaging the public, sustainable regulations are key components to shaping a system that addresses both health concerns and economic considerations. At this point, we have no reason to not put marijuana on the table.”

ACLU of Kansas legal director Sharon Brett mentioned the parallels between legislator opposition of medical cannabis as well as abortion, citing the similarities of the government attempting to control citizens’ healthcare opportunities. In August 2022, voters rejected a measure that would have amended the Kansas Constitution to state that “the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.” The measure did not pass with 58.97% of voters voting no, and 41.03% voting yes. “Refusal of the Legislature to legalize medical marijuana is the Legislature essentially inserting itself into medical decisions that should be made between a patient and their doctor,” said Brett. “This policy choice is about liberty and autonomy. It is about who is getting to decide important medical decisions—you and your doctors or politicians in Topeka.”

Considering that 38 U.S. states, alongside Washington, D.C., and the U.S. territories of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam, have legalized medical cannabis, advocates feel it is well past time for Kansas to follow suit.

In recent history, the Kansas House proposed a medical cannabis bill in March 2021, but it died in committee by May 2021. In March 2023, the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee shelved a bill that would have legalized medical cannabis, with the chairman saying that they have more important matters to attend to.

Gov. Laura Kelly responded to the shelved cannabis bill, calling on the committee to reconsider the bill and take action in the 2023 legislative session. “I am disappointed that some legislators are saying they don’t want to move forward with legalizing medical marijuana this year—effectively turning their backs on our veterans and those with chronic pain and seizure disorders,” Kelly wrote on X in March 2023. “If they get their way, for yet another year thousands of Kansans will be forced to choose between breaking the law and living without pain. I encourage Kansans to call their state legislators and tell them to legalize medical marijuana this session.” To date, no medical cannabis bills have ever made it far enough to land on a governor’s desk in Kansas.

Previous Kansas governors, such as Mike Huckabee, weren’t as supportive as Kelly when it comes to cannabis. In October 2022, Huckabee released videos that made claims about adult-use cannabis only benefitting drug cartels and other inaccurate statements. “Unfortunately, you aren’t the one who is going to be making the money, drug cartels will,” Huckabee claimed. “And if you are one of those people that can sell the drug, maybe you’ll make a buck off of the gullible people who will somehow convince themselves this is absolutely harmless.”

Poll results published by Fort Hays State University in October 2023 show that two out of every three Kansans support cannabis legalization, with a fairly balanced split between Republicans (75%), Democrats (73%), and Independents (60%). Many participants also said that they would vote for legislators who share support for medical cannabis legalization in particular.

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada isn’t accepting the Nevada Board of Pharmacy’s classification of cannabis: Despite legal cannabis for adults 21 and over in Nevada, the Board of Pharmacy continues to list cannabis as a schedule 1 substance—having no medical value.

A back-and-forth legal saga ensued, beginning earlier this year, when the ACLU of Nevada filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Cannabis Equity Inclusion Community (CEIC) and a man named Antoine Poole. The case, CEIC v. Nevada Board of Pharmacy, was first filed last April in Clark County court—saying the classification of cannabis defies the Nevada Constitution.

The CEIC is a nonprofit organization focused on policies that will make opportunities real and attainable for communities and people impacted by the War on Drugs. Poole was convicted of felony possession of a controlled substance for possessing cannabis—after it was legalized both for medical and recreational uses.

West Juhl is Director of Communications and Campaigns for the ACLU of Nevada, and believes the Board’s classification of cannabis is incongruent with the Nevada Constitution.

“It’s wrong as a matter of law, because our state Constitution specifically names a number of medical uses for cannabis,” Juhl told High Times. “The district court’s ruling was very clear in confirming this. I think it’s also wrong as a matter of commonsense. The people of Nevada have made it very clear that we want to regulate cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol and to move away from old, obsolete ideas about marijuana from the failed War on Drugs.”

In Nevada, the discord between the state’s Constitution and the Board’s policy mirrors the general discord between state and federal law in states with legal cannabis.

ACLU of Nevada Lawsuit Goes Through Appeal Process

The suit was met with pushback after gaining steam. Last November, Clark County District Court Judge Joe Hardy sided with the ACLU of Nevada ruling that classifying cannabis as a schedule 1 drug in Nevada is unconstitutional. Then the Nevada Board of Pharmacy appealed that District Court ruling shortly after. 

Despite the appeals process, the ACLU of Nevada held their ground. “Despite Nevada voters’ approval of laws to legalize cannabis possession for medical and recreational use in 1998 and 2016, respectively, the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy has failed to honor the Nevada Constitution, Nevada Revised Statutes, and the will of Nevada voters,” the ACLU Nevada said in a press release.

“The idea that the Board of Pharmacy is fighting this, I think is legally ridiculous. There is no basis for it,” Matthew Hoffmann, Partner at Battle Born Injury Lawyers, told FOX5, explaining that the Nevada Constitution was amended in 1998—explicitly stating that cannabis has medical purposes.

Placing cannabis on schedule 1—as the federal government does—essentially means that the Board believes cannabis has more risk than fentanyl and other schedule II drugs. Hoffman said that the federal classification has no bearing on what a state agency does.

“It has been a loophole that has been leading to criminal arrests and convictions over the course of the last two decades,” Athar Haseebullah, Executive Director of the ACLU of Nevada, told FOX5. “Fentanyl is listed as a schedule 2 substance, methamphetamine and cocaine are listed as schedule 2 substances because according to the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy, cannabis appears to be of more risk than those substances,” Haseebullah said.

ACLU Chapters Active in Multiple States

In 2019, the ACLU of Pennsylvania sued Pennsylvania’s Lebanon County to allow parolees and probationers to consume cannabis. Despite legalizing medical cannabis in the state, Lebanon County originally chose to disregard state law.

Also in 2019, the ACLU of Arizona targeted the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The ACLU sent a letter to Maricopa County Attorney General Bill Montgomery demanding his office no longer prosecute medical cannabis patients. The ACLU also demanded that Montgomery stop issuing threats to patients. Previously, Montgomery prosecuted and threatened licensed medical cannabis patients for possessing cannabis products sold at state-licensed dispensaries. 

ACLU of Nevada’s lawsuit against the Nevada Board of Pharmacy remains ongoing.

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National cannabis advocates are using election momentum to push for a legal adult-use market in Washington DC, which was approved by voters back in 2014.

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Black Minnesotans are more than four times more likely to get arrested for marijuana according to the latest data from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

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Lawmakers and activists convened in Kentucky this week to discuss a pair of proposals that would dramatically change how cannabis is treated in the state, but there remains a divide over how far the reform effort should go.

The biggest question of the moment remains: Will they legalize recreational cannabis, or just medicinal? 

Local television station WDRB reported that “state representatives and members of the Kentucky Cannabis Freedom Coalition, ACLU and NAACP met Tuesday in support of legalization” in the capital city of Frankfort, with the focus primarily aimed at two bills brought by Democratic state House Representative Nima Kulkarni. 

In November, Kulkarni pre-filed two pieces of legislation. One was a proposed constitutional amendment to allow adults ages 21 and older to possess, use and sell as much as an ounce of cannabis (or up to five personal plants) without legal repercussions. If the amendment were to pass, “the question would be added to the November ballot,” according to local television station WLKY.

Kulkarni’s other bill would decriminalize cannabis in the state while also expunging the records of those previously convicted of pot charges.

“I am sponsoring these bills for several reasons, any one of which should be enough for them to become law,” Kulkarni said in a statement after the bills were filed late last year. “First, current cannabis statutes have needlessly and tragically ruined many lives, especially people of color who have suffered because of unequal enforcement. Second, thousands of citizens, from cancer patients to veterans suffering from PTSD, should have the right to use something that gives them the mental and physical relief they deserve without relying on stronger, potentially addictive medicine.

“Third, cannabis decriminalization would give the state a much-needed source of reliable revenue without raising current taxes by a single cent. And, finally, polls have repeatedly shown a majority of Kentuckians backs decriminalization and allowing cannabis to be used responsibly by adults.”

Democratic state House Representative Attica Scott, a co-sponsor of the legislation, told WLKY that legislators in the Bluegrass State “have the opportunity to take the question to the voters in Kentucky and ask them, not politicians who want to be obstructionist, but the people who can benefit most from the legalization and decriminalization.”

Scott said that, for her, the two bills are a package deal.

“You can’t have one without the other, and I have been very clear that I am not going to sign onto legalization legislation if we don’t include decriminalization,” Scott said, as quoted by WLKY.

But other lawmakers in Kentucky are in favor of a different approach to cannabis reform, one that begins with a focus on medicinal cannabis.

WDRB said that lawmakers there expect the debate of this year’s legislative session “to revolve around medical marijuana, and some hope with the changes they’ve made to the bill, it will get through the Senate.”

Republican state House Representative Jason Nemes, who has previously pushed for medical marijuana in Kentucky, said that it’s an area with clear support from both voters and lawmakers.

“That’s the place where we have the votes, and we’re fine-tuning some things to try to make sure that we get a vote in the Senate,” Nemes told WDRB.

“Thirty-six states already have it,” he added. “There’s a lot of people who it would help, so I think medical marijuana is the step that Kentucky needs to take.”

A poll in 2020 found that nearly 60 percent of Kentuckians support legalizing pot for any use, while 90 percent said they backed medicinal cannabis. 

In 2012, the same poll found that less than 40 percent favored cannabis for any use.

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