Kansas Gov. Kelly hopes state can pass medical marijuana, as Missouri weighs recreational pot

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly reaffirmed her support for medical marijuana on Thursday but stopped short of endorsing recreational sales in Kansas, ahead of a key vote on legalization in Missouri.

Missouri voters will decide on Nov. 8 whether to approve recreational marijuana in their state four years after approving a medical program. Colorado, which borders Kansas, has had recreational marijuana since 2014. In just a few months, two more bordering states could legalize recreational marijuana. In addition to Missouri, Oklahoma could also vote on recreational sales as early as November.

But Kelly, a Democrat who has supported medical marijuana for years, isn’t ready to go further just yet. Still, she left open the possibility of backing recreational sales in the future.

“I want to push that through next term and make sure we get there,” Kelly said of medical marijuana in a brief interview with The Star,

“I think it’s a good place for us to start. Get that infrastructure built so that we can regulate it the way it needs to be regulated, ensure that we implement it in a way that’s productive,” Kelly said in Louisburg after an event celebrating a highway expansion. “Then I think we’ll let Kansans give us input over time and if they want us to go for recreational marijuana, we’ll consider it. The Legislature will consider it.”

The Kansas House in 2021 passed a medical marijuana bill for the first time. Despite the appearance of momentum among pro-legalization advocates, the legislation stalled in the Kansas Senate this spring.

The proposal would have allowed access to cannabis for patients with an approved list of diagnoses, including Alzheimer’s, cancer and Parkinson’s. The doctor writing the prescription would need to have had a relationship with the patient for at least six months. The dispensaries in the state wouldn’t be limited but individual counties could opt out.

Kansas state Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Bunker Hill Republican, said momentum exists to pass medical marijuana in Kansas, though he cast doubt on whether the upcoming Missouri vote would increase pressure on legislators to act.

“I don’t know if it would expedite that or not just because of the dynamics here,” Waymaster said.

The plan Missourians are set to vote on would legalize recreational marijuana sales, consumption and manufacturing for adults over the age of 21. While Kansans since 2014 have been able to travel to Colorado to legally purchase pot, the Missouri plan would mean many Kansans living in the Kansas City metro would have to travel a far smaller distance to legally buy it.

“Kansans will keep coming over to buy weed like they’ve already (been) doing for years,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas tweeted Thursday.

For his part, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican and former sheriff in Polk County, has called the recreational marijuana proposal in his state a “disaster.”

The Star’s Katie Bernard contributed reporting