After a Kansas legislative committee effectively killed a medical marijuana pilot program proposal last month, lawmakers are slated to take up the issue once again when they return from break later this month under a GOP senator’s new motion to force a vote on a different legalization bill.

Last week on the Senate floor, Sen. Robert Olson (R) made a motion that would revive a broader medical marijuana measure and have senators debate and vote on it. That bill, SB 135, was shelved by a legislative panel a year ago after pushback from law enforcement.

“We’ve debated this issue in committee,” Olsen told Senate colleagues. “It’s time that we have an opportunity to vote on the floor to try to bring this bill out.”

“There’s a lot of money that states around us are making from this,” he added. “Someday this is going to be law in this state. I would like to put it into law with good boundaries, and this bill does that.”

The Senate will vote on Olson’s motion to hear SB 135 once the body reconvenes on April 26.

Olsen previously backed medical marijuana legalization and said last October that Senate President Ty Masterson (R) removed

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“The reason I’m bringing this forward is to make certain hemp is hemp and hemp growers do not get out of their lane.”

By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

State law enforcement, local prosecutors and a lobbyist convinced legalization of medical marijuana posed the greatest threat to quality of life in Kansas tried to quietly squeeze into a bill lowering fees on industrial hemp producers an amendment that could send wayward farmers to prison for years.

The threshold between freedom and incarceration under the amendment advocated by the executive director of Stand Up for Kansas, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association would be a laboratory test measuring whether a hemp product had a THC content greater than 1 percent. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state of Kansas allow harvesting, processing and marketing of hemp with less than 0.3 percent THC.

“I just need help understanding who are we going after? I hope it’s not our industrial hemp producers,” said Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Sedgwick Republican and farmer. “Is there some place we can look to find out how much this is being abused? I’m trying to understand where all the abuse is

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Multiple marijuana companies donated a total of nearly $15 million to a Florida campaign behind a legalization initiative that will appear on the state’s ballot this November, including several multi-state operators, the latest state filings show.

The Florida Division of Elections (DOE) released the campaign finance activity report from the first quarter of the year on Thursday, showing $14,875,000 in new contributions from a range of businesses ahead of the state Supreme Court ruling that officially cleared the cannabis measure for the ballot.

Trulieve, the main financial backer of the initiative, led the pack again with $9.225 million in donations during the first quarter. That follows the company previously contributing about $40 million as advocates worked to collect more than one million signatures to qualify for ballot placement.

The campaign Smart & Safe Florida announced last week that it had secured the new funding from donors “committed to helping ensure victory this fall.”

Here’s a breakdown of who donated to support the legalization measure in the first quarter of 2024:

Trulieve: $9.225 million Verano Holdings: $2.25 million Curaleaf: $2 million Ayr Wellness: $500,000 Green Thumb Industries: $500,000 Cresco Labs: $400,000

Two other individuals also contributed $21.10 and $1.53 in the

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