Despite all the attempts to stop the Marijuana Sentencing Reform Initiative
from being on the ballot in the next
Wichita
city election, plans are to go straight ahead. Citizens will get to vote on
marijuana decriminalization on April 7.
And this vote has not been respected my many of
Kansas' elected officials. The irony is that
they
bend over backwards to protect gun
rights and the
rights of
high school
Christians to discriminate, based on their "religious rights." But they show no respect for those of
us who want to decide for ourselves if we want to smoke pot or not.
The ballot initiative to stop the criminalization of marijuana use was put on
the ballot after local activists from
Kansas
for Change coalition along with JENI (Jobs & Education-Not Incarceration)
and the Peace and
Social Justice
Center worked for months
to get the
Marijuana Reform
Initiative-ICT on
the ballot. The proposal seeks to amend the city code and make a first-offense
marijuana possession a criminal infraction with a $50 fine.
The conviction would be expunged
after 12 months if
an offender kept a clean record.
These groups have collected signatures twice and now have 4,000 signatures to
put this on the ballot. Still, there are many officials in the state who don't
approve of letting the people of
Wichita
to make this decision. Our own
Attorney General
Derek Schmidt has threatened to sue Wichita if it allows the
vote to go forward. He argued that city laws 'can't put a state law to a vote
on the ballot through the petition process.' He keeps arguing that only the
state can make such a decision.
Other Kansas Republicans, such as Kansas Representatives Steve Brunk, and Mark
Kahrs are also trying to take the initiative off the ballot. It is as hard for
conservatives to move away from marijuana prohibitions as it would be for them
to
stop supporting
Israel. There are their alliances with various churches, there
are supporters from groups that run drug treatment programs and there are the
pure and simple biased conservatives out there that simply can't take change.
Despite the efforts to take the vote away from the people of
Wichita, the vote will stay on the ballot. This
and efforts like this across the country show that this is a nation that is
tired of the relentless and useless draconian marijuana laws. There is a state
effort to lessen marijuana penalties
(HB 2049) here in
Kansas and such efforts are being made in
other states as well. We have already heard about the changes in
Colorado.
Almost as many adults smoke marijuana today as in the 1970s when groups such as
NORMAL were on the verge of changing the laws.
If this ordinance passes, it will not likely go into effect. But it will send a
message to our leaders that they can't maintain their anti-marijuana laws
forever. Just as with alcohol prohibitions, marijuana prohibition is not here
to say. We deserve the right to chose.
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