What the Kansas governor candidates say about legalizing marijuana

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – KCTV5 put all 10 candidates running for Kansas Governor on the record ahead of the critical August 4 primary.

To help voters make an informed choice, we asked every candidate the same seven questions on the top-line issues facing the state:

• The Economy: Strategies to address inflation, property taxes, and overall affordability.
• Kansas Farmers: Protecting hard-hit agricultural and ranching communities.
• Rural Healthcare: Solutions for hospital closures and the debate over Medicaid expansion.
• Marijuana Legalization: Stances on medical vs. recreational cannabis.
• Abortion Rights: Personal philosophies on reproductive healthcare access following the 2022 constitutional vote.
• Public School Funding: Addressing the special education funding crisis and future formulas.
• The Chiefs Moving to Kansas: Stances on the multi-billion dollar STAR bonds stadium deal.

Kansas is one of the few states where it is still illegal nearly across the board. If elected governor, would you push for legalization of any form?

Ty Masterson: That question, again, is a good question. I certainly wouldn’t push for it because, I think, almost like the Medicaid expansion question, it’s been realized in so many states. We don’t really have to guess anymore what’s happening. And it was supposed to be this financial boom to these states, right? “We’re going to tax it and get rid of the black market.” I mean, that was the pitch.

But in those states that have expanded—just look at Colorado, and Oklahoma is probably a starker example—the black market didn’t disappear. It got bigger, right? Because you have a bigger black market, you don’t have the money that’s solving any problems, and the money that is coming in is barely covering, and sometimes not even covering, the cost of enforcement and the other costs of having that expansion.

I think… you know, President Trump signed the executive order to allow for more research. I’m a big proponent of that because I think that will tell us a lot. And I kind of believe that research is going to tell us it’s not the panacea that everybody who advocates for it says it is. But I think we’re learning from all the other states around us.

Nick Reinecker: I’ve been going up to Topeka for the last 15 years advocating to get cannabis off the Controlled Substances Act. My father had issues. My grandmother is currently having dementia issues—it was right next door to the KU place. And I think that if we were to allow that plant freedom to flourish, we could eliminate a lot of spending in this state.

Now, obviously, anything can become an idolatry issue, and if we want to focus on that, then we’re going to have consequences. But the liberty piece of it…

Now, on the other hand, I am for a strong Controlled Substances Act when it comes to synthetic substances, up to and including putting any other substance on the Controlled Substances Act—a level three felony—so that you wouldn’t have opportunities for lots of treatment, you’d be more actually going to prison for that. So, I’m also a law and order guy when it comes to that respect.

I was a police officer for about a year and a half in Inman, Kansas, and I had a chance to become full-time. But I wanted to get this issue changed before I felt comfortable arresting people for different violations. And so, I’m still working on getting that change.

Scott Schwab: Well, I’m okay with the research of it so we can base our decisions on science. But my wife’s a doctor of pharmacy. How does she dispense that? If you’re on a hypertension medicine, whether it’s Walmart or Walgreens or CVS, there’s a consistency on how you dispense it. You know exactly what you’re giving the patient. When it comes to marijuana, we don’t know how potent that is. And there’s no control on the supply.

Now, if the FDA approves it, it is approved in Kansas automatically. But what folks want to do is skip the FDA, which I don’t think is real wise. And I’ve been saying this for a while: I don’t know anybody who smoked marijuana and suddenly got real smart. It impairs cognitive ability. It decreases production. And we don’t have a rapid THC test, so now we don’t even know who’s stoned on the highway. And that’s what gets really scary.

Stacy Rogers: Yeah, well, the governor doesn’t really have any say in this topic until a piece of legislation comes to the desk. And so the issue that we have right now in the state is the absolute refusal to even broach the subject about protections around the ultimate inevitability of it being legalized, either federally or at the state level. And that is what’s most concerning to me.

So I worked 15 years in pharmacy and I’ve seen both alternative medicine and the pharmaceutical side of things. And when you look at what is available—well, I have a lot to say about the pharmaceutical side of things—but when you look at what’s available for pain, for cancer patients, for things like that, we’re putting far more dangerous substances into people than what we could do if marijuana was legal for medical only. But the only way that I would be okay with that is under very precise constraints.

And, you know, earlier we had President Trump who moved it from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3. And that was one of the safest things that he could have done to protect people. And that is because it opened it up for research and development and to kind of create those guidelines. In addition, I’ve talked with law enforcement who, when I spoke to them about the different hurdles with it being legalized eventually or, you know, however that’s going to look, they agreed with me that there are not good ways to test. If you have someone who is actively under the influence of alcohol, there are tests that can be performed in the field. And there just is not that available readily. If you gave someone a blood test, marijuana can show up for up to 30 days after. And you may have someone who’s using it for pain or for PTSD or something else at a higher level than someone’s using it for epilepsy, for example. And so their blood levels may test at a much higher rate as well.

So these… we have to come up with the answers to those questions. Because should it be legalized on a national level, we’ll have an absolute free-for-all in this state, and that’ll be a disaster for Kansas. So we need to broach those common-sense subjects for that inevitability.

Ethan Corson: Yeah. We need a medical cannabis program in Kansas. This is an opportunity to provide really critical relief for folks with chronic pain, for veterans and others with PTSD. So that is something that I want to work with the legislature starting next year to get Kansas a medical marijuana program that can benefit our citizens.

Charlotte O’Hara: There’s all sorts of studies that show with the high level of THC in marijuana, it’s very detrimental, especially to young men, and that it creates psychosis. And I know that some people think that’s the answer—that tax revenue—but all you have to do is look at Colorado. The fool’s gold of legalizing marijuana has not turned out well for Colorado. Their expenses of treating overdoses and all of the negatives that come with marijuana—traffic, automobile accidents, et cetera, et cetera—they are showing us that it doesn’t work, that it doesn’t work. And no, I would not support.

Phil Sarnecki: Yeah, this is really a critical, critical issue. And I’ve spent a lot of time in rural Kansas in the last 10 months. And we’ve actually, in the last 10 years under Laura Kelly and Ty Masterson, we’ve had 10 rural hospitals close in the last 10 years. And right now we have 69 other rural hospitals that are at risk of closing. It’s more than any other state in the country.

And what I would just offer is the same thing I said about the farmers and ranchers—it’s a prioritization issue. What are we prioritizing as leaders? And we’ve been prioritizing the tax cuts for corporate welfare instead of rural health care.

I’m actually endorsed by both MAHA and Kansans for Health Freedom, and I think they see me as somebody that can come in and tackle this issue. And there’s a lot of ideas out there. I mean, Ron DeSantis in Florida—they’re test-piloting a Section 804 plan and a SIP plan. He thinks it’s going to save them about $183 million a year as a state, so that’s something we’re keeping an eye on.

There’s health insurance products, for example, like GigCare, where associations and groups can pool together—that could be very effective in our rural communities as well. And then the other thing that we really need to do is we need more residency programs in rural Kansas. Because, you know, once the residents go out to rural Kansas, they’re much more likely to stay if they go out there to do their residency programs. So we have to build those up and make those more robust as well.

Vicki Schmidt: Well, who’s going to… what’s the distribution channel? You know, when it’s a Schedule I drug, it’s not something that a pharmacist can dispense for medicinal use. What, you know… so where is the distribution going to come from? I think there’s so many questions about that. And like I said, that’s not even talking about the quality control. Who’s going to do the quality control of marijuana?

And, you know, I believe law enforcement has been so against the proliferation of marijuana use. And, you know, I’ve talked to law enforcement in other states, and they wish that they could walk theirs back. Because… I know a lot of people say, “Well, we could tax it and we wouldn’t have any problem funding our schools or funding ABCD.” Well, I think there’s some questions about that, just in the other issues that it causes. We don’t have a test on the side of the road for marijuana intoxication like we do with alcohol. So, I think there’s just a lot of issues there.

Curt Skoog: So, medical marijuana, I think, is the next step that we need to pursue. We need to make sure that there is reasonable regulation around it, similar to how we regulate pharmaceuticals and how we regulate alcohol.

We don’t have to look very far to states that have really messed up implementation of marijuana in their states. And it’s creating all kinds of security, safety issues, as well as quality of product issues. And so, we need to move towards legalizing medical marijuana. But we need to set the safeguards so that it’s safe and available across the state.

Cindy Holscher: Yeah, you know, I have looked at both sides of that. Initially, I was pushing for medical, but I’m at the point now where I’m saying, let’s do medical and recreational. Again, states around us are doing it. The sky hasn’t fallen. In fact, like I said, they’re getting the benefits of the revenue to fund their schools. We should be doing that here. Plus, the medicinal purpose and those advantages make a big difference to our people.