Pubdate: Sat, 25 Jul 2015
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer (OH)
Copyright: 2015 The Cincinnati Enquirer
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/aeNtfDqb
Website: http://www.cincinnati.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/86
Author: Anne Saker

OHIO NORML OUSTS LEADER FOR SUPPORTING RESPONSIBLE OHIO

One of Ohio's oldest marijuana-legalization group has kicked out its 
president for supporting the ResponsibleOhio effort to legalize 
marijuana in Ohio.

Rob Ryan of Blue Ash was removed in June as leader of the Ohio 
chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws 
(NORML). The decision comes amid escalating tensions among Ohio's 
marijuana activists over how to legalize. Ryan and others see 
ResponsibleOhio as an important step forward. Others see the 
well-financed effort as wealthy people manipulating the political 
system to cut out the little guy from what could be a billion-dollar 
industry in Ohio by 2020.

Twelve members of the Ohio NORML board of directors, most of them 
leaders of the nine regional chapters, voted to remove Ryan from the 
state presidency. A 21-item bill of particulars complained that Ryan 
has been mean to NORML members, especially those who do not share his 
support of ResponsibleOhio: "Rob Ryan has taken to attacking anyone 
that doesn't agree with him."

"Rob Ryan began going to the monthly meetings all over the state to 
push support for RO," the complaint said. "If anyone had questions or 
didn't like the language, he would become verbally abusive and 
argumentative. This continued for a couple of months, until he 
finally realized the membership wasn't being receptive."

New president: Bullying prompted Ryan's removal

The board of directors chose longtime NORML officer Brandy Sheaffer 
as president of the Ohio chapter. Sheaffer declined requests for 
interviews about Ryan's removal. She wrote in emails that Ryan's 
support for ResponsibleOhio "absolutely had no bearing" on the 
board's decision.

She said Ryan's bullying and abuse of members pushed the board to 
remove Ryan: "Robert Ryan would still have been removed from Ohio 
NORML even if ResponsibleOhio never existed."

Ryan, a former aerospace engineer who lives in Blue Ash, said his 
ouster had everything to do with his activism for ResponsibleOhio. He 
had been president of Ohio NORML for three years. The 400-member 
organization, formed in Ohio in 2002, is an independent affiliate of 
the national NORML group.

Ryan has been talking with ResponsibleOhio's organizers since last 
year and since the spring has collected signatures to put the 
Marijuana Legalization Amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Friday, he discussed the petition with customers at The Cream of 
Caffeine, a coffee shop in Deer Park.

"Everything boiled down to the fact that I'm abrasive. It's true. I 
am. I'm an engineer," Ryan said. "They just did not like that I was 
collecting signatures for ResponsibleOhio. But I was the president of 
a marijuana-legalization group. I believe in legalization. And 
ResponsibleOhio means legalization." Buy Photo

Ryan gives a sticker to Alex Harper, owner of The Cream of Caffeine 
coffee shop. (Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann)

Plan would limit crop to 10 farms around state

ResponsibleOhio is a group of more than 20 private investors, many of 
them Ohioans, who have put up $20 million for the campaign this year 
to amend the state's constitution to set up a regulatory body to 
oversee marijuana legalization.

The most controversial component of the plan would limit the 
cultivation of the commercial crop to 10 farms around Ohio, the legal 
descriptions of which are written into the proposed constitutional 
amendment. The investors have already purchased or obtained options 
to purchase those properties.

Individual growers could buy $50 annual licenses from the state to 
raise four flowering plants at home.

Activists who have been pushing for legalization for years, even 
decades, oppose the ResponsibleOhio set-up as an un-American 
limitation on free enterprise. They prefer regimens like those 
adopted in Colorado and Oregon, where anyone can grow marijuana. 
Joining the activists in opposition to ResponsibleOhio are the Ohio 
Legislature and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.

Last month, lawmakers quickly wrote and passed a ballot initiative 
for November that would prohibit any "monopoly, oligopoly or cartel," 
especially any that produce a federally prohibited drug. Last week, 
the 60,000-farmer federation announced that its board of directors 
opposed ResponsibleOhio as a distortion of the Ohio Constitution.

A perversion of NORML or not?

Aaron Weaver of Vermilion is president of Citizens Against 
ResponsibleOhio. He said Ryan's support of the marijuana initiative 
was "a perversion of the NORML name" on behalf of ResponsibleOhio.

"ResponsibleOhio and the greed behind it has actually done a lot to 
expose the snakes who have been in the grass for quite some time 
now," Weaver said.

But Keith Stroup, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who founded NORML in 
1970, backed Ryan's efforts. Stroup said while ResponsibleOhio does 
not have everything a marijuana activist could want, it is a form of 
legalization. Ryan, Stroup said, lost his post because he supported that form.

"At national NORML, we have always been about stopping the practice 
of treating responsible marijuana smokers as criminals and about 
establishing a legally regulated market where consumers can buy their 
marijuana in a safe and secure environment," Stroup said. "For us, at 
the national level, if this initiative qualifies for the ballot, I 
think there is no doubt that we will support it, even though it's not 
our favorite version of legalization."

Five things to know about ResponsibleOhio this weekend:

Petitioners will be out across the region collecting signatures from 
registered Ohio voters.

The organization needs to turn in at least 29,509 more signatures to 
qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot.

ResponsibleOhio has until Thursday, July 30, to turn in the 
signatures to the Ohio secretary of state.

The magic number of registered voters' signatures to make the ballot 
is 305,591.

Opponents include marijuana-activist groups No to ResponsibleOhio and 
Citizens Against ResponsibleOhio and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom