Pubdate: Sun, 14 Jun 2015
Source: Dayton Daily News (OH)
Copyright: 2015 Dayton Daily News
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/7JXk4H3l
Website: http://www.daytondailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/120
Author: Thomas Suddes

UNDERSTANDING BOTH PARTS OF THE MARIJUANA ISSUE

The argument over legalizing marijuana in Ohio has two parts. One is 
over legalization itself. The other argument, if Ohio legalizes, is 
how to regulate growing and selling.

The General Assembly almost certainly won't legalize marijuana, maybe 
not even for medical use. So the likeliest way to legalize marijuana, 
if voters want to, is through a statewide ballot issue proposed by 
petition. One such ballot issue, backed by an outfit named 
ResponsibleOhio, appears likely to reach November's ballot.

The amendment would limit (legal) marijuana production to 10 Ohio 
sites listed in the ballot issue. One site each would be in Greater 
Cleveland's Hudson and Lorain; in Stark County's Alliance; in 
Franklin County's Jackson Township and Licking County's Pataskala; in 
the Miami Valley's Moraine and Middletown; in Toledo; and in suburban 
Cincinnati's Anderson and Union townships.

The amendment would also let Ohioans age 21 or older, after they get 
a state license, possess and use homegrown - up to 8 ounces at a 
time, plus four flowering plants.

The 10-site marijuana production monopoly is what riles a number of 
Statehouse bystanders of both parties, thanks to Ohio's 2009 casino 
issue. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and Penn National Gaming Inc., using a 
voter-petitioned ballot issue, cinched a sweet business deal for 
themselves: A monopoly, entrenched in the Ohio Constitution, which 
allows four casinos, and only four, in Ohio: Two owned by Gilbert, 
two by Penn National.

So sometime soon, the General Assembly will almost certainly send 
voters a bipartisan ballot issue to forbid the use of "constitutional 
initiatives" - petition-proposed amendments to the Ohio Constitution 
- - that create more Ohio business monopolies.

Among officeholders leading the anti-monopoly charge: State Auditor 
Dave Yost, a Columbus Republican. Yost's twostep plan would forbid 
voter-initiated constitutional amendments granting monopolies. The 
only way to get around Yost's ban would be, first, for voters to pass 
an amendment to suspend it. If they did, then, at a separate, later 
election, voters would have to approve or reject the proposed 
monopoly itself. Another possible anti-ResponsibleOhio plan, crafted 
by legislators, would flat-out ban monopoly amendments. If voters 
OK'd that this November, and ResponsibleOhio's marijuana plan also 
passed, the legislative plan's wording would cancel passage of 
Responsible Ohio's.

Thursday, in Ohio Constitutional Revision Commission testimony, 
ResponsibleOhio's executive director, Ian James, said he "[finds] it 
interesting and odd that politicians trusted the voters enough to 
elect them, but now they don't trust them to do what's right." Fair 
point. James also said "the [current] system of amending the Ohio 
Constitution has worked incredibly well to expand rights for Ohioans."

That's an open question. The initiative did indeed work incredibly 
well - for Dan Gilbert and Penn National. And an initiative produced 
the 2004 constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage in Ohio 
and forbids Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages solemnized 
elsewhere. If that's expanding Ohioan's rights, Newspeak has hijacked 
Mr. Webster's dictionary.

The initiative was aimed at helping Ohio voters bypass special 
interests who had chokeholds on state government. With religious 
zeal, reformers at Ohio's 1912 constitutional convention praised the 
initiative and referendum. The convention president, Herbert S. 
Bigelow, a Cincinnati minister, emphatically hailed the two concepts: 
"Oh! My friends, we are striking down tyranny," Bigelow told 
delegates. "We are forging the greatest tools democracy ever had. We 
are building grander institutions for freedom and for humanity than 
the world has ever known."

That was a reach. This isn't: The last thing Ohio reformers wanted 
was an Ohio Constitution that could be manipulated to mobilize 
majorities to bash minorities - or to favor the few at the expense of the many.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom