TOPEKA
Supporters of medical marijuana rallied in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday to protest a bill that they say would make it harder for epilepsy sufferers to get hemp-based remedies.
The group opposes Senate Bill 489, which was originally designed to create a medical-card system to allow patients access to hemp oil and other marijuana derivatives for treatment of epileptic seizures and other medical conditions.
The protesters said the bill ended up so heavily amended by a Senate committee that it actually would make it more difficult to obtain hemp-related treatments. They also said it would restrict compounds with very low concentrations of marijuana derivatives that are already legal.
Christine Gordon of Lenexa, vice president of the patients’ rights group Bleeding Kansas, brought her 4-year-old daughter, Autumn, to the rally. Autumn has epilepsy.
Gordon treats her daughter with a compound of oils called “Haleigh’s Hope,” which contains a low percentage of THC, the active chemical in marijuana.
She said it helps her daughter with cognitive function and developmental skills. But “it does not control her seizures and is not the cure for her epilepsy,” she said.
Her problem with SB 489 is it limits the amount of THC in children’s medication to .3 percent.
“It puts more restrictions on something that the parents already have available,” Gordon said. “We already jump through enough hoops and go through enough financial trouble without the state making what’s already federally available harder to get for these children.”
Wichita former candidate speaks
The fieriest voice at the rally was Jennifer Winn of Wichita, a businesswoman and former candidate for Wichita mayor and Kansas governor.
“This mentality, when people pull up to me and say, ‘My kids aren’t sick, my grandbaby doesn’t have cancer, my children don’t have seizures, I don’t have to fight for this’ – you are part of the problem, not the solution,” Winn thundered.
She said denying marijuana-related treatments is “absolutely disgusting.”
“And it will not stop until we recognize who the enemy is,” she continued. “My enemy are the people that sit in these offices and refuse to hear us.”
Winn became politically active and a strong supporter of marijuana legalization after her son, Kyle Carriker, was charged with murder in connection with a gun battle over a marijuana deal gone sour. Carriker, who was shot and wounded in the incident, had tried to facilitate a deal between friends with marijuana to sell and three strangers who posed as buyers but turned out to be robbers.
Carriker was acquitted on the murder charge by a Sedgwick County jury.
“How is it possible my son could face life in prison because he told someone where they could get pot?” Winn asked the crowd. “How is it possible that that little girl can die of seizures because we can’t have access to a plant?”
Related bill advances
In a related matter on Wednesday, a House-Senate conference committee moved forward with a bill to slightly reduce penalties for marijuana possession.
The newly bundled House Bill 2462 would cut first-time pot possession from a Class A misdemeanor to the lower-level Class B misdemeanor.
Second offense would become a Class A misdemeanor, instead of the current Level 5 Drug felony.
Language that would have legalized higher-strength hemp oil was stripped from the legislation in the Senate.
The major significance of the sentencing change is that it will eliminate the possibility of prison time for a first-time marijuana possession conviction, said Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City and a member of the conference committee.
He said he plans to vote against the legislation anyway because he thinks the potential $1,000 fine for possession is excessive. He said he thinks $50, the amount specified in Wichita’s marijuana decriminalization initiative, would be about right.
Although voters approved the Wichita initiative last year, it was overturned by the Supreme Court on technical grounds related to the handling of the petition that put it on the ballot.
Dion Lefler: 316-268-6527, @DionKansas
This story was originally published April 27, 2016 6:39 PM.