By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Medical marijuana is likely to still be debated at the Kansas Legislature this session.
"I support medical marijuana," said Representative Jason Probst. "Kansas is one of the last few states that hasn't legalized it. I feel that we are missing out on a very good revenue stream, a voluntary tax revenue stream. It's going to come one way or another and my question has always been, is Kansas going to regulate it the way it wants to regulate it, or are we going to have to accept somebody else's default regulations."
Representative Paul Waggoner believes the debate will likely get to the floor of the House.
"I sit on House Fed and State, we're the committee that actually has the medical marijuana bill in front of us to work, which supposedly is going to happen," Waggoner said. "The devil is in the details. The notion that there's 40 plus states, I mean, there's a dozen states that basically have full on legalized marijuana. The remaining states that have a medical marijuana program, there's a lot of variation. There's some that are legitimately medical marijuana. The proposal before us in Fed and State, it doesn't actually have smoking a joint. It's all edibles, it's all other methods of delivery, as they would say. The real question is, do you have this go through any sort of regulatory process to where the actual medical aspect of it is verified, or is it just all anecdotal?"
Waggoner believes the bill will be heavily amended and so, he's not sure what the final legislation will be that is voted on. Seiwert believes that is the key.
"It all depends on what's in the bill," Seiwert said. "The question that also rises, if you legalize it for medical, I have no problem for that. The question is, if you're an employer, it's kind of like drinking and driving, if you get stopped and you have an accident and you test positive for marijuana, who is going to be liable for that? That brings up some questions that haven't been answered that I don't think anybody ever talks about."
Governor Laura Kelly initially proposed tying medical marijuana to Medicaid expansion to help pay for it. That was prior to the incentives put into the latest federal stimulus package on that issue.