Former Republican candidate uses Constitution to argue in favor of legalizing cannabis

On Sunday, the day after March 20, which celebrates marijuana, the Wichita Eagle published an op-ed by Nick Reinecker, a former Republican candidate for the Kansas House, a cannabis legalization advocate, and a resident of Inman, Kansas. In his op-ed titled, ‘Constitutional conservatives should embrace cannabis freedom, not try to demonize it’, Reinecker states that he’s concluded that the “true menace when it comes to cannabis, (aka marijuana, hemp), are those who forget, deny or subvert our agreed-upon rules of historic constitutionality.”

Reinecker notes that this constitutionality is built upon the Declaration of Independence which secures our “natural rights, endowed by our Creator” and that these rights are to be defended by the people’s elected representatives.

“When the government (especially the federal government), prohibits a plant that has a very robust protein profile for nutrition, industrial uses that were drowned out by synthetics, and therapeutic health maintenance properties including anti-inflammation, we have gone outside those boundaries and there is a need to redress this grievance,” Reinecker writes.

He goes on to place blame on the federal government and those that believe legislators are protecting people through cannabis prohibition such as KBI Director Tony Mattivi.

Reinecker does go on to admit that he is for a state Controlled Substance Act and a “hard-on-crime approach when it comes to the possession, manufacture or distribution of synthetic substances,” listing such drugs as fentanyl, methamphetamine and even synthetic cannabinoids which can already be bought in Kansas. He further states that he “would support first-time minimum mandatory 30-day sentences for possession” of a synthetic controlled substance.

He further states that non-scheduled drugs including sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco shows that the idea that cannabis is a menace to society “does not hold water.”

“The 10th Amendment of our Constitutional Republic’s agreed upon rules states, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the People,’” Reinecker writes.

He further states that “a hypocritical criminal justice or behavioral-health system which is geared toward disparate enforcement” is the only gateway prohibition of cannabis provides and that Kansans do not need more “diagnoses, restrictions, regulations, fees, fines, or laws.”

Reinecker concludes his op-ed with the following statement:

“We, the People of Kansas, need for our elected officials to do what they swore or affirmed to do and that is to defend the Constitution and our natural rights, which includes constitutional cannabis.”