Ballot issue invites look at marijuana use in Wichita

How often do people get arrested for marijuana? Who gets arrested? And are they accused of other crimes as well?

Those are some of the things we wondered as Wichitans prepare to vote April 7 on a proposal that would lessen first-time penalties for adults caught with an ounce or less of marijuana.

The future of the proposal is unclear, even if voters pass it. State officials have already said they will challenge it in court since it conflicts with state law.

But we can learn some things from what is happening with marijuana in Wichita now, based on data from the Wichita Police Department, Wichita Municipal Court and Sedgwick County District Court.

Here are key findings:

▪ Charges for first-time marijuana possession in Wichita Municipal Court have dropped nearly 40 percent – from 912 to 558 – from 2010 to 2014.

▪ A disproportionate number of first-time marijuana offenders in municipal court in the last five years have been black.

▪ People arrested for marijuana in Wichita also faced other charges in 78 to 88 percent of cases since 2010, according to the Wichita Police Department.

▪ An average 57 percent of overall marijuana arrests were for felonies and 43 percent were for misdemeanors from 2010 to 2014, according to WPD data.

The proposed ordinance would not legalize marijuana.

Instead, first-time marijuana possession would become a criminal infraction with a $50 fine – if the user is an adult caught with less than an ounce by Wichita police and the case is charged in Wichita Municipal Court.

State law says possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia are Class A misdemeanors punishable by up to a $2,500 fine and one year in jail. Another offense with the same classification is assault of a police officer.

Supporters successfully submitted a petition in January to get the marijuana question on the ballot in Wichita.

Petitioners in August fell just short of the number of signatures needed to place a measure decriminalizing pot on the November ballot. After that, the City Council directed city legal staff to help them redraft the ballot language, resulting in the current proposal.

Decreasing numbers

The number of overall marijuana-related arrests has declined each year except for one in the last five, according to data from the Wichita Police Department.

The fewest arrests – 1,377 – came last year. Of those, 792 were for felonies and 585 were for misdemeanors. Felonies include crimes like possession with intent to sell or distribute. Misdemeanors include simple possession.

Police say the drop is largely the result of a shortage of patrol officers and of the department shifting manpower to tackle problem areas like burglaries and larcenies.

Because a patrol officer’s priority is responding to 911 calls, fewer officers means there is less time to devote to officer-initiated projects that can boost arrest numbers, said police Lt. Kevin Mears, commander of the agency’s special investigations bureau. An example is addressing neighborhood complaints about drug usage.

“If you have fewer officers in the field, then you’re going to have to put more resources toward the problems. … When you start taking resources from one place and putting them in another to handle something, you see some effects of it,” he said.

The department is trying to recruit qualified candidates to close the gaps. In the meantime, he said, “you have to use every body the best way that you can.”

“The laws are still going to be enforced when we run across” drug crimes, Mears said.

Racial disparity

Black residents make up 11.5 percent of Wichita’s population but account for 35 to 40 percent of the first-time cases, municipal court records showed.

Nationally, blacks were 3.7 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana, even though black people and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rates, according to an ACLU analysis of millions of marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010.

The Rev. Kevass Harding, pastor of Dellrose United Methodist Church in Wichita and a former Wichita police officer, said society assumes black people are the primary users of marijuana and responds by “deeming it proper” that more be arrested for drug offenses.

“Marijuana has become the drug of choice to chase after in your low-income, urban neighborhoods, regardless of black, brown, yellow or white. I call it the low-hanging fruit. … It’s hard to get to the guy who’s selling it, but it’s easy to get to the guy who’s buying it,” he said.

“We arrest culturally more black folks than white folks, which is a huge disparity.”

Djuan Wash, director of communications at Sunflower Community Action, a local civil rights group, said he was not surprised that African-Americans are being arrested at higher rates than whites.

“Should the ordinance pass, decriminalization would be a giant leap forward in the reduction of recidivism and the over-criminalization of African-American communities,” he said.

Wichita police say the disparity could be a product of several factors, including criminal profiling, but is not racial profiling.

Other charges

Supporters say the ballot issue would help people who make a one-time mistake not have to pay for the offense for a lifetime.

That number of people may be relatively small. Most of the people arrested for marijuana possession also are arrested on suspicion of other charges, according to police and district court data.

The data obtained by The Eagle didn’t give a breakdown about the other charges; they could range from traffic offenses to more serious crimes.

Police and the district attorney offered some scenarios in which law enforcement might encounter a first-time offender, resulting in possession charges: disturbance or domestic violence calls, a person booked into jail on a warrant with the drug tucked into a pocket, a car stop that leads to a pat-down, DUI enforcement and investigations into more serious crimes that turn up marijuana.

Mears, the police lieutenant, said he was struck by the high number of people arrested for marijuana and another charge. For him, it raises questions about the common narrative that first-time offenders are being sent to prison for nothing more than simple marijuana possession.

“We don’t take people into jail just for a simple bag or for a simple pipe. It’s not worth it,” he said, calling simple possession “secondary” to other reasons police make contact with users. “It’s a waste of their (police’s) time. And it’s a waste of the jail’s time and money.”

A lot at stake

Esau Freeman, organizer for Marijuana Reform Initiative-ICT, which helped organize the ballot petition, takes exception to that.

“When officers arrest someone, they’re doing their job, but if a person happens to have marijuana on their person, that’s just one more charge piled on,” he said.

“I would not like for people to immediately draw a correlation that people that possess marijuana are committing (other) crimes, because thousands of people in Wichita that possess marijuana are not committing other crimes.”

Freeman said MRI-ICT and others are not advocating for people who have aggravated cases but for people who otherwise follow the law, so that “if they happen to be caught, it won’t be such a harsh charge.”

For instance, he says, a person pulled over for a suspended license who also happens to have marijuana will be more affected by the marijuana charge.

“There’s a lot to be lost by some of these people,” said Steve Shaffer, a former sheriff’s officer and CEO of A New Dimension, a court-approved program for first-time marijuana offenders.

“It’s hurt some of them financially. It’s hurt some of them with their careers. We get people from every walk of life. We’ve had doctors, school principals, teachers, all kinds of people, and it’s very foolish for them to use marijuana because ‘Bang,’ they could lose their career, lose their freedom.”

“People don’t understand it’s not just a marijuana conviction. It’s a drug conviction. Period. End of story. And that’s not going to look good on your resume.”

Simple possession

Under current law, first-time simple possession always is a misdemeanor, whether it is charged in municipal or district court. Second-time marijuana possession is always charged as a felony in district court, but it can be a misdemeanor if it is charged in municipal court.

The Wichita Police Department has not taken a public stance on the ballot issue. But Mears said that if the proposal ultimately becomes law, it probably won’t change much about how police interact with marijuana users.

Now, adults who are found with a “personal-use” amount of marijuana are issued a citation with a court date and are sent on their way – if they are Kansas residents, provide positive identification and are not suspected of any jailable offenses, Mears said. They also must sign the ticket.

The same procedures would apply if the ballot measure passes. But marijuana users would have one more opportunity to get caught before simple possession became a felony charge.

Some people charged with simple marijuana possession plead guilty or no contest to possession of drug paraphernalia, which is always a misdemeanor, so the conviction isn’t counted toward a felony, Mears said.

Others convicted of simple possession are placed on probation or diversion.

Diversion

Diversion gives some offenders the chance to have their charge dismissed eventually if they qualify and follow guidelines set by the court. Marijuana users must complete drug treatment and pay fines and fees.

If the ballot issue is approved, people who receive an infraction probably wouldn’t go through diversion or its required treatment, said Sharon Dickgrafe, interim city attorney, noting that the city has not worked out all the nuances of the proposed law.

The ballot language does not include requiring diversion.

Brett Beal, addiction counselor and program director at ADAPT, a municipal court-approved program for marijuana offenders, said he supports the principle of the ballot petition, but he has concerns over potentially losing diversion programs for first-time offenders.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett called diversion programs “a perfect approach” for first-time offenders with little to no criminal history and no other charges.

“For someone who has nothing that they’re facing except marijuana, diversion is a good resolution,” he said.

Contributing: Matt Riedl of The Eagle

This story was originally published March 28, 2015 at 7:18 PM with the headline "Ballot issue invites look at marijuana use in Wichita."