Don't look for any sweeping changes in Missouri drug laws this legislative session. Instead, legislators probably will just tweak current laws this year to assure most of the drug money seized by Missouri law enforcement agencies gets to education, as the laws intend. But by the next session legislators plan to be armed with studies and audits that would allow them to revamp the entire Criminal Activity Forfeiture Act. In January, The Kansas City Star reported that police were diverting millions of dollars that under state law should have been turned over to schools. State law requires police to send drug money they seize to a state court, which then usually sends it to public education.
State law prohibits police from making such direct transfers to a federal agency.
Among bills introduced in January were several constitutional amendments that would have given half the seized money to police rather than all the money to education. That idea appears to be finished, several legislators said. I don't even like my 50-50 bill anymore. Sen. Blank voted to take money away from the kids and give it to the cops so they can buy guns to knock down doors in urban neighborhoods. That's powerful stuff.