Senator David Haley to represent Kansas at International Drug Policy Reform Conference

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – Sen. David Haley (D-Kansas City) has been invited to represent the State of Kansas during the 2013 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Denver, Colo.

Haley is serving as a panelist during a forum and roundtable discussion on which states might be the next to legalize marijuana.

“As the solo Kansas Senate sponsor for several years of legislation to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, it still bothers me that twenty other states already permit their residents to obtain this holistic, natural alternative to pharmaceutical drugs to ease their maladies without being demonized or criminalized.” said Haley. “Further, as a fiscal conservative, I am so disappointed that Kansas continues to lose the potential tax revenue (estimated at $15 million a year to our State’s General Fund) as our, yet illegal but allegedly high caliber, existing crops go to Colorado and other surrounding States for ready, legalized, consumption.”

Earlier this month, the Silver Haired Legislature, one of Kansas’ largest senior policy advocacy organizations (second in membership only to the AARP), endorsed legalizing medical marijuana.

More than 1,000 drug policy experts, elected officials, law enforcement, students, healthcare and drug treatment professionals from around the country and across the world are expected to gather at the biennial event “to promote alternatives to the failed, and highly socially discriminatory, war on drugs.” The conference is hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance, headquartered in Manhattan, New York.

Sen. David Haley represents the 4th Senate District which comprises most of the center and eastern half of Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas.

The only Democratic attorney in the Senate, he serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary and on the Kansas Sentencing Commission.