Puff Puff Pending: Prairie Village considers decriminalizing marijuana

*Name changed to protect identity

Prairie Village city staff members are currently gathering information on the decriminalization of marijuana and seeking community feedback to decide if they should move forward with the Cannabis Policy.

During the Prairie Village City Council meeting on Jan. 19, an ordinance proposing the city decriminalize marijuana received a unanimous preliminary vote from councilmembers to move forward into the research phase — which Mayor Eric Mikkelson predicts could be presented as early as March. City staff will research the pros and cons to decriminalizing marijuana while also taking community feedback via social media and emails into consideration.

“For a new initiative, this is kind of how we like to do it so we can really hear from all the stakeholders and take their opinions into account before we finalize any details,” Mikkelson said.

According to an Instagram poll of 367 East students, 89% are in favor of Prairie Village decriminalizing marijuana. 

Councilmembers Inga Selders and Ian Graves presented the Cannabis Policy to the city council, in which they focused on two methods of city decriminalization: legalizing all municipal offenses involving marijuana and establishing minor penalties for small possession offenses. While other methods of reform are still open for discussion, their presentation emphasized the importance of why marijuana reform needs to happen in Prairie Village.

One of Selders’s main points for decriminalizing marijuana was that, due to discrimination, minorities are more likely to be arrested for marijuana.

During the Jan. 19 presentation, they included a statistic from American Civil Liberties Union’s Marijuana Arrest Statistics that stated, nationally, Black people are 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. But in Johnson County, that number is 8.4.

For senior Ana Sofia Lahovary, the racially disproportionate marijuana arrest statistics were eye-opening. As a varsity debater, Lahovary spent hours extensively researching evidence on this year’s topic, criminal justice system reform, where one of the cases was decriminalizing marijuana.

“Those statistics are an example of the many areas that need to be fundamentally changed in the criminal justice system,” Lahovary said. “I think adopting progressive policies at any level is good in general, and hopefully we’ll continue to see a trend throughout the state.”

While marijuana is illegal in the state of Kansas, cities such as Lawrence and Wichita have established individual marijuana policies where the punishment fine in Lawrence is $1 and Wichita is $25. Selders and Graves mentioned in their presentation that they could consider modeling their Cannabis Policy after either of these cities.

Another argument mentioned during the presentation was how Prairie Village neighbors Kansas City, Mo., where medical marijuana is legal and where people drive through Prairie Village to get there.

“Being a border city with a state that will plausibly legalize recreational cannabis in the next two to four years will likely result in a significant influx of Kansas residents driving through Prairie Village to purchase marijuana products,” Selders said during the council meeting. “This means we need to be ready and willing to evolve on this issue even if our state does not.”

One of the benefits Graves added is that when people are looking for drugs, they will lean more towards marijuana rather than harder drugs like cocaine and heroin. He also noted the medical aspect of how marijuana can serve as a better pain killer alternative than other drugs like acetaminophen where overdoses are more probable. 

After failed medical treatments, senior Amelia Donner* started smoking marijuana to relieve the pain she experienced from her temporomandibular joint dysfunction that causes her jaw to lock up and make eating painful. 

“When I was first diagnosed with TMJ, I saw a lot of doctors and I tried a lot of treatments and none of them really helped me,” Donner said. “And our insurance wouldn’t cover any of the medical procedures to cure TMJ, so I just started using [marijuana] because it was something I could afford to help with the pain.”

However, because it’s illegal, Donner has to be careful when getting and smoking marijuana to not get caught by the police. 

Medical purposes aside, junior Heisler Ferren’s concern is that people will see this law as an opportunity to use marijuana irresponsibly. 

“For medical purposes, it’s obviously okay if people really need it, but on the other hand, I don’t really want everyone to be able to get it cause I think it might get a little bit out of hand,” Ferren said.

With increased teenage marijuana use being a common concern, Selders and Graves included a National Survey on Drug Use and Health in their presentation that showed marijuana use between the ages 12-17 has dropped almost 12% in the two years after Colorado legalized marijuana.

Mikkelson is keeping an open mind on the ordinance until more research is presented and a greater response from the community is received. So far, most of the feedback Mikkelson has heard of has been positive and in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. 

“[We want] residents of Prairie Village to know that we’re talking about [decriminalizing marijuana] and if they have strong opinions to call their councilperson, email their councilperson — we want to hear from them on this,” Mikkelson said.