Kansas marijuana supporter frustrated with legislature

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas lawmakers go back to the state capitol Monday.

A bill they could bring up is the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. A supporter of the initiative said she’s made great progress over the past couple of years.

“But I’m a little frustrated. You know we keep getting the, ‘Well we ran out of time excuse,” KC Hemp Co. Co-founder Heather Hobbs Steppe said Friday. “It’s likely coming on Monday this year. It’s been years before, so it’s frustrating. I’m a little frustrated.”

Steppe wants medical marijuana passed this year.

“It absolutely is a bipartisan issue,” she continued. “You’ve got 70 percent of Kansas who support this. There are Republicans who support this, Democrats, Independents. It’s not a partisan issue. It is completely bi-partisan.”

Steppe would also like to see recreational marijuana passed but knows the conversation in the state is just around medical marijuana right now. She called prohibition the true danger to cannabis, not whether it’s recreational or medicinal.

“Now you’ve got people who are making it in shadier ways or procuring it in more dangerous ways. I mean, we saw it in Olathe what happened with a teen shooting.”

FOX4 spoke to Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe Thursday after Saturday morning’s incident at Black Bob Park in Olathe where six teenagers are accused of murdering a 19 year-old after they met up to buy weed from him.

“A lot of people say if you just legalized marijuana that would solve the problem. That underlies the data.”

Howe says violence related to marijuana has increased in Colorado where medical and recreational marijuana are both legal.

“Missouri has made strides in that area as far as legalization. Has it slowed down the violence in Missouri? No it hasn’t.”

A group in Missouri is trying to get recreational marijuana passed in the state since medicinal already is. A spokesman for Kansas Republican Senate President Ty Masterson says it’s “highly unlikely” medical marijuana becomes legal in the Sunflower State this year.