Sheriff Easter says marijuana flier took his words out of context

A flier distributed to voters across Wichita on Tuesday in support of the April 7 marijuana ballot issue misrepresented Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter’s stance on the issue, he says.

The proposed ballot measure would reduce penalties for first-time marijuana possession for those 21 and older with an ounce or less of the drug.

The flier, which was passed out by Marijuana Reform Initiative-ICT representatives, says:

“I personally think that the idea is sound when it comes to fines and people going to jail for it for first-time offenses.”

The quote is attributed to Easter, with a sentence following the quote saying he is “Agreeing with the lesser penalties proposed in the reform initiative.”

Easter says he did say that at a League of Women Voters forum on Feb. 23. But it was taken out of context, he said, since his entire presentation beforehand talked about the adverse effects of marijuana legalization.

“What I explained was all the adverse aspects of it as well. In amongst this conversation, they took one sentence that I said and then spun it into this, like I’m supporting it,” Easter said. “Well, I’m not supporting it because I truly believe this is an attempt to legalize marijuana in the state of Kansas, which I’m against.”

“The thing that is upsetting to me is that you take one sentence out of the context of a broad subject and then try to paint that to the voters that I’m supportive of this. It is not true.”

Esau Freeman, an organizer for MRI-ICT, said the quote was taken in part from a KMUW article on the forum. Freeman debated Easter at the event, he said.

The KMUW article says: “I personally think that the idea is sound when it comes to fines and people going to jail for it for first-time offenses,” Easter said. “My only issue is, ‘Is this the first step to legalization of marijuana?’”

“There is a break in the quotation marks, and I’m assuming he wanted us to put that last part of the secondary quote,” Freeman said.

Freeman contends the petition has nothing to do with legalization, so adding the second part of the quote was not germane to the issue.

“We did not mean to take him out of context,” Freeman said. “We don’t want to misrepresent him but don’t know what else he meant if you look at the quote in its entirety. We had no intention to take it out of context whatsoever.”

Easter has been sheriff since December 2012. Before that, he was with the Wichita Police Department for 24 years, he said. Easter said he sent Freeman a letter about the flier saying he felt it was misleading.

Easter said he wasn’t even aware of his name on the flier until Wednesday afternoon. He said if the ballot issue passed, there would be discrepancies in how the Wichita Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office would deal with offenders since sheriff’s deputies will continue to follow state law.

“The concept itself of reducing fines and those kinds of things I think is sound, but they’ve got a lot more work to do other than just this ballot to make that work,” said Easter, citing that state law would need to be changed in order to reduce penalties. “…I won’t debate with folks like this any longer if they construe my words like that. It’s just not worth it.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2015 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Sheriff Easter says marijuana flier took his words out of context."