Pubdate: Sun, 01 May 2016
Source: Dayton Daily News (OH)
Copyright: 2016 Dayton Daily News
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/7JXk4H3l
Website: http://www.daytondailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/120
Author: Thomas Suddes
Note: Thomas Suddes is an adjunct assistant professor at Ohio University.
OHIO TRIES TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT POT
More than a token, but something short of tokin': That's the Ohio
General Assembly's task in trying to craft a bill legalizing Ohioans'
use of medical marijuana.
The science may or may not be there, at least not entirely. But what
looks like a public consensus seems to be. And that consensus is that
marijuana's chemical components can help Ohioans fighting certain
illnesses or enduring, say, chemotherapy.
Pending in a House committee is House Bill 523, a bipartisan medical
marijuana plan sponsored by Reps. Stephen Huffman of Tipp City and
Kirk Schuring of Canton, both Republicans, and Dan Ramos, a Lorain
Democrat. Huffman's a physician. He earned his medical degree at the
Medical College of Ohio (now the University of Toledo's College of
Medicine and Life Sciences). Among those praising the House for
taking up the medical marijuana issue: Sen. Kenny Yuko, a Richmond
Heights Democrat, a longtime proponent of medical marijuana.
For details on HB 523, as the bill is now worded, see the explainer
("analysis") available at the Ohio Legislative Service Commission's
Web site, www.lsc. ohio.gov. Go to the site's "resolutions & related
documents" tab and search for HB 523.
Politically speaking, House Speaker Clifford A. Rosenberger, a
Clarksville Republican, cleared the way for House debate on the
issue. That is, Rosenberger did what a legislative leader should do:
Lead. For too long, Ohio legislators of both parties have ducked
hot-button issues by leaving them to "consultants" and other
hucksters who promote statewide ballot issues written to benefit a
ballot-issue's backers, not taxpayers. Peoples' Exhibit No. 1: The
2009 ballot issue that authorized four gambling casinos in Ohio, a
bonanza for Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and suburban Philadelphia's Penn
National Gaming Inc.
The 2009 ballot issue passed with 53 percent of those voting
statewide voting "yes." And that 2009 proposal was the fifth casino
gambling issue in 19 years to be on Ohio's ballot.
That is, for almost a generation, the General Assembly could have
written a taxpayer-friendly casino gambling law. But legislators
wouldn't, possibly due to counter-pressure from racetracks, which
feared the competition. Almost inevitably, voters signed off on the
deal Gilbert and Penn National wrote themselves. Why not? It was the
only thing on the table. But that also moved Ohio closer to
"Californication" writing laws not at the Statehouse but at the polls.
It appears that one or more medical marijuana ballot issues could
qualify for this November's ballot. True, last November, Ohio voters
rejected, by 64 percent to 36 percent, a ballot issue to legalize
marijuana for both medical and recreational uses. But three of the
first four casino issues on Ohio's statewide ballot only drew the
"yes" votes of 38 percent of the Ohioans voting on them. Even so,
Ohio today has casinos precisely the kind of casinos, thanks to that
2009 ballot issue, that the casinos' owners want.
Meanwhile, this is funny: People who may not think much of some of
Republican Gov. John R. Kasich policies want him to end his
presidential campaign, come home - and run Ohio.
But Kasich's gubernatorial staff, and the House's Rosenberger, and
Republican Senate President Keith Faber of Celina, seem to be coping
just fine. Besides, why shouldn't the host-governor of the Republican
National Convention stay in the ring for a title bout staged on his
turf ? And amid Republicans from 49 other states in Cleveland in
July, the Republican best-positioned to know what's going on in
downtown Cleveland, with countless pairs of Ohio eyes and ears at his
disposal is ... the governor of Ohio.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom