Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Blade, The (Toledo, OH)
Copyright: 2015 The Blade
Contact:  http://www.toledoblade.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/48
Author: Tom Troy

MARIJUANA BACKERS NOW LOOK FOR GROWTH IN OHIO

Polls show support, but ballot drive faces legal, social hurdles

First of three parts

Nearly 80 years since the United States effectively declared marijuana
an illegal drug, support for legalization is spreading like a weed.

In the past three years, voters in Colorado, Washington, Oregon,
Alaska, and the District of Columbia have voted to allow the
recreational use of pot.

This year, Ohio voters will likely be asked to join the cannabis
cavalcade.

That proposal, generated by a group calling itself ResponsibleOhio, is
well into the signature-gathering process. Given its resources,
estimated at more than $40 million, gathering signatures will likely
not be its hardest task.

The ResponsibleOhio plan would allow adults 21 and older to possess an
ounce of pot and grow up to four plants.

It would allow up to 1,100 entrepreneurs to make marijuana products
and open marijuana retail stores. The most controversial aspect of the
plan is that it allocates the exclusive right to grow marijuana
commercially to 10 investor groups that have each put up $4 million to
pass the amendment.

ResponsibleOhio isn't the only group trying to legalize marijuana in
Ohio, but it is the farthest along.

Marijuana possession is still illegal under U.S. federal law, as it is
in most other countries.

Growing fear of the effects of cannabis led to the federal Marihuana
Tax Act of 1937. It didn't ban marijuana, but taxed it in a way that
prohibited anyone from legally acquiring a marijuana tax stamp.
Congress followed up in 1970 when it labeled marijuana a controlled
substance with a high potential for abuse and no acceptable medical
use.

A recent poll by Quinnipiac University showed 52 percent of Ohio
voters amenable to allowing possession of a small amount of marijuana
for personal use. Gallup Poll also shows growing acceptance of
marijuana - at 51 percent, up from 34 percent supporting legal use in
2003.

"If you look at polling trends, all signs point to Americans becoming
more liberal on this issue over time, much like same-sex marriage,"
said University of Akron political scientist David Cohen. "What you
will likely see moving forward in terms of elected officials is some
of the libertarian-leaning Republicans supporting marijuana
legislation as well as most Democrats."

Mild penalties

Ohio has relatively mild criminal penalties for marijuana
possession.

Possession of less than 100 grams - enough to make 100 or more joints
- - is a minor misdemeanor incurring, at most, a $150 fine, court costs,
and no criminal record.

Police and prosecutors say they don't rate marijuana enforcement
against individual users a high priority.

In a typical case in November, 2014, Toledo police were summoned about
a man yelling profanities at Magnolia and Huron streets near downtown,
stumbling and slurring his words, his eyes glassy.

The 41-year-old man was charged with disorderly intoxication and
possession of marijuana paraphernalia because he had a joint in his
pocket.

His punishment after pleading no contest in Toledo Municipal Court: a 
$75 fine.

Toledo Municipal Court processed no cases last year of simple
marijuana possession, but 118 cases of possession of marijuana
paraphernalia, such as rolling papers or a pipe.

Toledo Law Director Adam Loukx said that's because the paraphernalia
charge saves police and prosecutors the trouble of testing for
marijuana but has the same penalties. He said the noncriminal
consequences for some people to be arrested for marijuana can be severe.

"Say you're [a registered nurse]. That gets reported to the licensing
board. Even with the small amounts, it still has some teeth," Mr.
Loukx said. "I think a person with licensure has some risks."

Also, Ohio law mandates a six-month driver's license suspension for
drug convictions, though the General Assembly is taking action to
abolish this penalty.

Over the previous two years, the Lucas County Prosecutor's Office
indicted 56 people for possession of between 200 and 1,000 grams of
marijuana, a 5th-degree felony. Of those cases, 40 were dismissed,
either outright or through a diversion program, and 16 pleaded to the
charge - often as part of a plea bargain to a more serious charge.

The U.S. Department of Justice for the northern half of Ohio has
prosecuted about 25 cases involving marijuana in the past five years,
according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Northern
District of Ohio.

Nationally, less than 1 percent of those incarcerated are in for
possession of marijuana as their only offense, according to the
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University. In Ohio, fewer than 1,000 people are in prison for
marijuana offenses, said JoEllen Smith, spokesman for the Ohio
Department of Rehabilitation and Control.

The Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area office in suburban
Cleveland reported that Ohio law enforcement agencies seized about
51,000 pounds of marijuana in 2014. ResponsibleOhio projects an annual
pot market 10 times that great in Ohio by 2020 if its amendment goes
through.

Change in Michigan

Michigan voters approved medical marijuana in 2008, and a campaign for
an amendment similar to ResponsibleOhio's has kicked off for 2016.

Greg Adair, 30, a Monroe medical marijuana advocate, is a patient
using pot and a caregiver for five people. He's all for
legalization.

He said senior citizens who put it on their arthritic hands are
relieved "completely." It can be smoked or rubbed as an oil on the
skin or administered in an edible or taken as drops on the tongue,
either with or without the psychotropic side effect.

A medicinal type of marijuana is also used to reduce seizures in
children.

"A 7-year-old would never be high. They're absolutely just getting
relief. They're not getting high whatsoever," Mr. Adair said.

He said mammals were designed to use the compounds that grow naturally
in cannabis because all mammals have cannabinoid receptors in their
bodies.

He also believes in the industrial potential of the hemp plant -
marijuana without the THC.

"It's crazy that nobody understands or is willing to take the venture
and knowledge to know that. They just basically go on what they are
told," Mr. Adair said.

A warehouse worker, Mr. Adair said he has used pot daily since he was
14. His medical use is for knee and back pain. The people for whom he
is a caregiver - that is, as supplier and adviser on how to administer
cannabis - are a 78-year-old woman, three men in their 60s, and a
9-year-old boy.

The claimed medical benefits of marijuana have been debated for
decades, centuries even, but with little embrace by the medical
establishment.

Indeed, the American Society of Addiction Medicine in 2011 issued a
strong statement recommending a halt to prescribing weed as a medicine.

"As experts in addiction medicine, we reject having its use as such
foisted upon us to effectively regulate a non-[Food and Drug
Administration]-approved substance to administer as medicine," the
society's president said.

n 1980, the Ohio General Assembly approved a bill to research
medicinal uses of marijuana for four years. Pharmacists at the
then-Medical College of Ohio Hospital, now the University of Toledo
Medical Center, could have dispensed a gelatin capsule with THC for
cancer patients experiencing nausea and vomiting from
chemotherapy.

The state Controlling Board refused to release the funds for the
research, so it was never done.

In 1995, the General Assembly passed a law putting Ohio in the
forefront of medical marijuana law by creating a legal defense for
patients to use marijuana if a doctor provided a written
recommendation for its medical value.

The following year, the legislature repealed the law.

One of those voting unsuccessfully against repeal was then-state Rep.
Jack Ford (D., Toledo), who went on to become mayor of Toledo and who
died last month.

Despite running a drug treatment agency in Toledo for 20 years, he
endorsed marijuana for some patients.

"We have people who are very sick, who are going to die a more painful
death unless we intervene," he told his fellow lawmakers at the time.

The Ohio General Assembly is again considering medical
marijuana.

House Bill 33 would allow doctors at a handful of state university
hospitals to prescribe cannabis to patients with seizure disorder -
and no other ailments.

Co-sponsor Rep. Michael Sheehy (D., Oregon) said he hopes the bill
will be brought up for a vote because it has a Republican sponsor, but
that hasn't happened yet.

"If it goes to the floor, I have a strong sense it would pass," Mr.
Sheehy said.

Though he has no stance yet on legalization, Mr. Sheehy said the
epidemic of deadly heroin addiction is making marijuana less
frightening.

"We have such big problems with the opioid addictions, people dying by
the thousands with heroin overdoses, heavy pharmaceuticals, that
marijuana pales by comparison," Mr. Sheehy said. "No one ever died of
a marijuana overdose."

Supporters of legalized marijuana say its addictiveness is exaggerated
and that it is less harmful than alcohol - and not associated with the
aggressiveness sparked by alcohol. They say it is widely used, and
that the state would benefit from taxing it, that users would benefit
from regulating it, and that those involved in the illegal trade would
be able to come out of the shadows.

They also say the state of Ohio spends $120 million a year enforcing
marijuana laws, and that African-Americans are disproportionately
prosecuted for marijuana - at a rate four times that of whites.

Many marijuana users say they don't feel impaired by the
drug.

Legal consequences

Ottawa County resident Elden Boucher, now 69, was arrested on June 27,
1995, for illegally growing 195 marijuana plants at his rented
farmhouse on North Toussaint South Road.

He arrived home to find six guns pointed at him. Eight years would
pass before Boucher's odyssey as a drug offender would be over - 54
months in prison followed by probation.

"I didn't think I was that bad a person till I went to court, and then
I was a menace to society and scourge of the Earth," the retired
professional hunting, trapping, and fishing guide and commercial
fisherman says now, with a rueful chuckle. "I lost everything I owned.
My wife divorced me."

Boucher hasn't changed his mind about marijuana.

"I never thought the good Lord put it on Earth for it to be illegal,"
Boucher said.

His small, well-kept ranch home close to Lake Erie is festooned with
duck decoys and stuffed animals; he grew up feeding his family with
muskrats and fowl that he shot with shells parceled out by his mother.

He became a busy and successful professional hunter, while also
developing a taste for marijuana. His conviction in U.S. District
Court ended his hunting career because of a federal ban on felons
owning guns.

He said marijuana eased the pain he had from carpal tunnel surgery and
soothed anxiety in the evening.

"I found I could function better on marijuana than I ever could
alcohol. I enjoyed it. I had done my work that I had to do. It didn't
deter me from my businesses," he said.

He admitted having a large number of plants, but said he didn't get
that much pot from them, as deer, rabbits, woodchucks, raccoon,
squirrels, and bugs often got to his crop before he did.

Toledo lawyer John Potts, who was Boucher's lawyer, said use in small
amounts is effectively decriminalized, but it's still illegal, and
possession in larger amounts such as Boucher had can still land you in
prison.

"A lot of the damage that's done to people [by marijuana] is because
it is illegal," Mr. Potts said. "It might not be a bad idea for the
government to recognize that people are going to do it anyway."

Studies conclude the effects of marijuana are more subtle than
alcohol. The American Journal of Addiction reviewed all the studies of
marijuana-impairment in 2010 and concluded, "Experienced smokers who
drive on a set course show almost no functional impairment ... except
when it is combined with alcohol."

The study found that pot smokers overcompensate for being high. In one
study, the scientists couldn't get the stoned drivers in a test to
drive as fast as the speed limit.

Because THC can stay in the body for weeks, science hasn't come up
with a foolproof method of proving impairment. Washington and Colorado
have ruled 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood is evidence of
intoxication.

Fighting the wave

A consortium of drug abuse prevention advocates and law enforcement
officials is trying to battle the growing acceptance of marijuana
legalization, but they feel they are being drowned out.

Derek Siegle, executive director of the Ohio High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area office in Cleveland, a federal program that
coordinates local drug enforcement efforts in northern Ohio, said
9,000 Ohio residents were treated for marijuana abuse in 2010 - more
than heroin and other opiates or cocaine.

"We're going to see a jump in car accidents, job tardiness, job
injuries, school dropouts. The science is out there of its effect on
the developing brain," Mr. Siegle said.

"You have to be 21 to get alcohol and cigarettes, and they still get
them. Once it's out there, kids will get their hands on it," Mr.
Siegle said.

He cites federal transportation safety data showing that the number of
fatal accidents in Colorado in which an operator tested positive for
marijuana doubled, from 39 to 78, from 2007 to 2012.

The Obama Administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy
strongly objects to legalization and says marijuana is addictive and
harmful.

Yet, President Obama has taken a more tolerant stance than his drug
control appointees. He has said he wants marijuana to be treated more
as a public health issue than a criminal one.

His Department of Justice has said it will not prosecute marijuana use
where it is legal under state laws - a policy that could change under
another president after 2016.

Marcie Seidel, executive director of Ohio's Drug Free Action Alliance,
is the informal voice against liberalization but said she can't lead
the campaign because her organization is funded by the state. She said
marijuana is addictive to one out of 11 people, and is always found on
the path to harder drugs.

Jon Allison, a Columbus attorney, is leading the organized opposition,
that he said will include anti-drug activists, law enforcement, and
business and manufacturing representatives. They hope to raise about
$6 million - a fraction of the $40 million that ResponsibleOhio has
been pledged by its 10 investors.
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