Kansas hemp business owner requests court intervention following raid, seizures
The owner of a McPherson County CBD dispensary has filed a lawsuit demanding a halt to raids ordered by Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Tony Mattivi, right, and Attorney General Kris Kobach, seen speaking about the raids at a news conference on Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — A McPherson County lawsuit filed by a Kansas business owner challenges “unconstitutionally vague” enforcement operations leading to the seizure of hemp cash and products at the direction of the state attorney general and the director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
KBI Director Tony Mattivi and Attorney General Kris Kobach said that in October, law enforcement agents raided CBD and vape stores to execute more than a dozen search warrants against businesses suspected of not complying with the nation’s drug law.
In a statement, Mattivi said the targeted stores were “nothing more than pot dealers” and that the state must “enforce our controlled substance laws when these substances cause harmful effects on Kansas children.”
Barry Grissom and Jake Miller, of a law firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, responded Monday, requesting on behalf of Mike Ballinger, owner of the McPherson CBD store Hanging Leaf, a court injunction to stop comparable searches and require the return of seized property.
“The arguments speak for themselves,” said Grissom, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas and an advocate for legalizing the sale and use of marijuana in Kansas.
Mattivi and Kobach, in their official capacities, were named in the filing seeking an injunction against “recent enforcement actions involving hemp products legally permitted under Kansas law.”
On Oct. 1, Mattivi and Kobach unveiled their statewide “marijuana enforcement operation,” focused on vape shops and CBD dispensaries. This law enforcement effort resulted in the execution of at least 15 search warrants throughout Kansas.
The lawsuit says authorities seized $7,000 in inventory as well as cash from Hanging Leaf. Some of the cash deposited at Hanging Leaf was the property of an independent business operated by the plaintiff, according to the suit.
The plaintiff’s attorneys said Kansas law allows hemp products containing no more than 0.3 percent Delta-9 THC or tetrahydrocannabinol. The plaintiff alleged that gas chromatography KBI testing was capable of detecting “only the presence of THC and could not determine the origin” of the substance. The suit says the KBI testing program inappropriately resulted in the seizure of compliant merchandise.
Additionally, the plaintiff claimed that the unconstitutional vagueness of the Kansas law encouraged “arbitrary enforcement that cripples protected commercial activities.” The filing called for a ban on the raids until the state adopts legal protection for products containing less than 0.3% hemp-derived Delta-9 THC.
“Due to the overbroad and broad nature of the search warrants issued in the operation, and the Kansas law itself, the store owners saw varying quantities of legal products seized without any recourse to recover the products or potential profits from those products,” the lawsuit states.
