Advocates' hopes high as Kansas heads for medical pot debate

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers expect to have their most serious debate so far on medical marijuana this year, fueling high hopes for advocates who have been stymied by the state's prohibitionist roots and Republican-controlled Legislature.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has said she would sign a bill legalizing medical marijuana. A House committee has committed to reviewing the issue, with its members engaging in a brief, informal debate about it during the year's first meeting this week.

Some legislators who back medical marijuana still hesitate to predict that a bill would pass, suggesting it may take another year or two. And Kelly didn't mention the issue during her annual State of the State address. Yet advocates are optimistic.

Legislators in both parties concede that they're being forced to consider the issue more seriously because conservative neighbors Missouri and Oklahoma legalized the medical use of marijuana in 2018 through ballot initiatives, and Colorado allows adult recreational use. Pressure also has built on them as the states allowing medical marijuana have increased to 33, and advocates pitch pot as a medical alternative amid the nation's opioid epidemic.

“With Colorado and Oklahoma being so close and Oklahoma being a rather conservative partner to Kansas, I would say that they're starting to just decide that the climate's changed," said Esau Freeman, a longtime Wichita legalization advocate and co-founder of the advocacy group Kansans for Change.

Kelly's election in 2018 boosted the prospects for medical marijuana in Kansas. Her GOP predecessor, Gov. Jeff Colyer, a surgeon, opposed it, as did the last Republican nominee for governor, Kris Kobach.

Kansas legislators last year created an industrial hemp research and production program, and approved a law to protect from prosecution people...