The latest effort to legalize medical marijuana in Kansas has been halted by the Republican-controlled state Senate.
A motion that would transfer Senate Bill 135 from the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee to the Senate had only 12 votes on Friday, well short of the required 24 “to force a bill to the Senate floor,’ according the Kansas Reflector.
With only days left in the legislative session, SB 135 was essentially left hanging in committee.
The measure would have created an act that would regulate the cultivation, processing, distribution, sale and use of medical cannabis.
Republican Sen. Rob Olson wrote the motion “calling for that bill to be withdrawn from the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee and transferred to the full Senate for possible debate and votes,” The Reflector reported.
“Someday this is going to be law in this state,” Olson said, according to the nonprofit news organization.
“I would like to put it into law with good boundaries, and this bill does that.”
A separate piece of legislation, SB 555, which would have created a five-year pilot program to create access to MMJ for very sick people, in March was delayed until 2025.
Kansas is one of 10 states in the U.S. that has not legalized medical nor adult-use cannabis.
