Kansas Law Enforcement Launches Raids Against ‘Brazen’ Cannabis Sales In Storefronts

“The places that we’ve identified today are nothing but weed dealers in strip malls.”

By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector

Kansas Bureau of Investigation director Tony Mattivi and Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) announced a crackdown Wednesday on “brazen” sales of marijuana and THC products as law enforcement raided 10 shops in six cities across the state.

The two spoke to reporters at a news conference in Topeka while the raids were underway, and they said additional stores would be targeted later Wednesday and again on Thursday.

Mattivi said the KBI was targeting illegal retail drug sales because teenagers were suffering dire health consequences from consuming products with high concentrations of THC.

“I was at one of these locations earlier today,” Mattivi said. “The violations of the Kansas Controlled Substances Act are brazen. These places are selling pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes. They’re selling marijuana bud. They’re selling marijuana flower in canisters and cigarette by cigarette.

“The places that we’ve identified today are nothing but weed dealers in strip malls, and we cannot continue to not enforce our controlled substance laws when we have these substances causing bad effects on Kansas kids.”

Mattivi said a Kansas child would face less resistance buying marijuana than tobacco cigarettes.

“That has to come to an end, and that’s what we did today,” he said.

The KBI and local law enforcement spent weeks planning the raids in locations where local prosecutors had agreed to bring charges, Mattivi said. The initial wave of targets included smoke and vape shots in Concordia, McPherson, Pratt, Salina, Topeka and Wichita. The seized products would be sent to KBI or private labs for testing, Mattivi said.

While Kansas is surrounded by states that have legalized marijuana to some extent, the drug remains illegal here. Kansas lawmakers have considered bills in recent years that would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, and the House passed legislation in 2021, but Senate leadership has stonewalled various proposals. The issue is expected to resurface in the next year’s legislative session, ahead of election season.

For now, Kobach said, the laws have to be enforced. And, he said, there are many illegal products available at stores in Kansas, including THC vapes and THC teas.

“In recent years, enforcement of our laws against marijuana and THC in Kansas have been intermittently or, in some jurisdictions, not enforced at all,” Kobach said. “And so this is an announcement that that period of lax enforcement is ending, and the KBI has taken the lead in identifying places that have become particularly brazen in their selling of marijuana products.”

Kobach and Mattivi traced the rise in illegal sales to the 2018 Farm Bill passed by Congress that legalized some hemp products.

“Since the Farm Bill passed, there’s been a growing acceptance of some of these products, whether they’re CBD or or THC,” Mattivi said. “Over time, these shops, I think, have pushed the envelope and pushed the envelope and pushed the envelope.”

Some of the products, Mattivi said, contain 75-95 percent pure THC.

“Part of the problem that we’re dealing with when it comes to THC and marijuana is that there has been a continuous rise in the concentration, or the level of purity, the level of THC, that’s present in these products,” Mattivi said. “This isn’t the 6 or 7 percent THC ditch weed that a lot of people in this state are familiar with.”

The KBI said the following stores were raided midday Wednesday: Two EZ Smoke and Vape locations in Wichita, Whiskey River Trading in Pratt, Cigarette Outlet in Pratt, Pratt Tobacco and Vape in Pratt, Space Out Smoke Vapor & Tobacco in Salina, Vapor 100 in Salina, Mountain Gypsy Vape Shop in Concordia, The Hanging Leaf in McPherson, and Sacred Leaf in Topeka.

This story was first published by Kansas Reflector.