Wichita City Council votes to decriminalize marijuana possession, fentanyl test strips

The Wichita City Council repealed the city’s marijuana laws Tuesday, potentially halting hundreds of prosecutions annually for minor marijuana possession in the largest city in Kansas.

The repeal of the city’s marijuana laws passed 5-2, with council members Bryan Frye and Becky Tuttle voting no.

The move to decriminalize at the city level seeks to eliminate 750 to 850 prosecutions a year for marijuana possession in municipal court. Those prosecutions disproportionately harm Black Wichitans, according to data presented by the city on Tuesday.

Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple has been pushing for demographic information on marijuana prosecutions from the city’s law department for months, and it was disclosed for the first time Tuesday.

Black residents make up 10% of the Wichita population and 45% of the city’s marijuana prosecutions, the data showed. More than half of marijuana cases in municipal court are brought against people under age 30, Assistant City Attorney Sharon Dickgrafe said.

54% of marijuana prosecutions are white residents, and about a third of those are Hispanic, Dickgrafe said.

The move to decriminalize marijuana possession comes seven years after Wichita voters approved lessening penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana in a citizen-initiated ballot question. Attorney General Derek Schmidt, Republican candidate for governor, got the initiative struck down by the Kansas Supreme Court on a technicality.

Schmidt’s office and campaign spokesman did not respond to questions about whether he would challenge the city’s decriminalization vote.

Marijuana remains illegal in Kansas and at the federal level, meaning a person can still be arrested and charged in state or federal court. But local law enforcement agencies have historically been the primary agencies that bring minor marijuana possession cases to court.

With Tuesday’s vote, the Wichita Police Department and the Sedgwick County District Attorney are left decide whether to arrest and charge people for marijuana possession under state law.

City Council member Brandon Johnson, who supports legalizing marijuana for recreational use and is chairman of the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training, asked whether the City Council could direct the Wichita Police Department not to arrest people for marijuana possession.

But Dickgrafe said that move would likely result in legal challenges because the City Council would be directing its police department to not enforce state law.

“They have discretion on whether to arrest an individual,” Dickgrafe said. “However, CPOST (Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training), as I think you’re familiar with, is going to require them to enforce the law, which puts the officer in this difficult situation of, OK, I’m not going to enforce the law, but I legally can’t have you have that marijuana.”

“I think jails should be used for keeping violent people off the street, not for punishing people for having a plant,” Johnson said.

The vote also decriminalized fentanyl test strips, which may be considered drug paraphernalia under state law. No one has ever been prosecuted in Wichita for possessing the test strips.

‘Smattering of inconsistent laws’

Nationwide, marijuana laws are murky, as local and state governments have adopted a patchwork of inconsistent laws that often conflict with a federal prohibition on marijuana.

Kansas is one of 11 states where marijuana is completely prohibited. All four surrounding states have some form of legal marijuana.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett told the City Council that his office does not have enough resources to take on an additional 750 to 850 marijuana possession cases a year. If cases do come to his office, the penalties will be more severe than in municipal court.

“If the goal is to reduce the impact on citizens, there will be some who will get a complete pass because I can’t take on 750 more cases,” Bennett said. “Whether that’s a good or bad thing, you get to decide.”

Bennett did not take a position on the City Council’s move to decriminalize. But he expressed frustration with the federal government, which considers marijuana an illegal, Schedule I drug — more tightly regulated than cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl.

“Frankly, much of the blames lies at the federal level,” Bennett said. “Marijuana is not legal in any state in the United States. It’s illegal. It’s just that the feds, rather than deal with this and have an honest conversation, have chosen to ignore it and not enforce their laws. Fine. I guess that’s their purview. But, as a result, the states have been left to have this smattering of inconsistent laws across the United States.

“You have the ability to simply remove it from your books,” he told the council. “I guess I would just point out that leads to the same basic fundamental problem that states are in right now because of the feds’ inability and unwillingness to address this issue.”

Advocates for marijuana legalization applauded the city’s efforts to decriminalize and said it’s a step toward change at the federal level.

“We know this is just sending a message,” Esau Freeman, a Wichita service employees union leader and proponent of legal marijuana, said. “But, as our City Council, we expect you guys to send this message to the people in the state and it’ll eventually get to the people on the federal level.”

Freeman said decreased enforcement of marijuana laws could help repair trust in the city’s police department. The City Council last month hired a national consulting firm to assess racial bias within the department after an Eagle investigation uncovered the department’s mishandling of racist text messages shared between members of the SWAT team.

“Police do great work when they’re out catching rapists, murderers and violent people,” Freeman said. “But one of the number one reasons people don’t want to get pulled over by police is marijuana. They don’t want to get pulled over and harassed.”

The repeal is scheduled for a second reading next week and is set to take effect Sept. 23 upon its publication in The Wichita Eagle.