Last updated : November 11, 2024
Supporters of an effort to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational use can now move forward with collecting the signatures necessary to get the proposal on the ballot and seek voter approval.
An affirmative decision from the Ohio Ballot Board announced Friday, March 20 rendered the measure appropriate for inclusion as a single ballot issue. The proposed amendment to the state constitution would make it legal for adults over the age of 21 to purchase marijuana and cultivate up to four plants at their place of residence. The measure also calls for the designation of 10 authorized cultivation sites to be located throughout Ohio, and would allow the state to levy a tax on marijuana that is purchased at any retail space.
ResponsibleOhio is the organization who launched the legalization effort, and Friday’s announcement served as the figurative starting gun in the group’s race to gather more than 305,000 voter signatures needed for the proposal to be included on the November 2015 ballot.
Ohio would become the fifth state in the nation to legalize marijuana if voters approve the proposed amendment.
Ian James, campaign manager for ResponsibleOhio, said that internal polling efforts have shown the proposal has a real shot at passing at the ballot box on 2015, despite the fact that there will be no national or statewide political races to boost voter turnout this coming fall. James further explained that it’s not only the young voters who have expressed support for marijuana legalization.
“When you talk with older voters and you talk about marijuana being able to treat Alzheimer’s, arthritis, assisting the children who suffer from dozens of seizures a day, rather than ravaging their bodies with opiates,” James said. James added that those same older voters felt marijuana should be similar to alcohol in that people aged 21 or older should be permitted to make their own decisions concerning recreational marijuana use.
Not everyone is pleased about this latest development, including Drug Free Action Alliance, a group that has expressed its concern that the proposal is rooted in greed alone. Drug Free Action Alliance lawyer Jon Allison argued that backers of the legalization movement are not genuinely worried about aiding the state’s sick and aging population and are only concerned about lining their own pockets with another kind of green matter – cold, hard cash.
“Ask the cartel investors if their hearts would be in this without a constitutionally guaranteed return on investment,” said Allison in a press statement.
The proposal calls for marijuana farmers, retail stores and commercial processors to fork out an additional 15-percent revenue tax, and consumers would be required to pony up a five-percent tax each time they purchase marijuana, a tax that would be independent of Ohio’s existing sales tax. The revenue generated from the marijuana-related revenue and sales taxes would help fund public safety departments at county, city and township levels, as well as cover the costs of major infrastructure improvements like bridge repair.
