Friday, April 15, 2016
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
The Ohio Ballot Board has given the green light to a second group proposing to amend the state constitution to allow the use of medical marijuana to begin collecting signatures.
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted and the other four members of the panel agreed Thursday the Medicinal Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Amendment represented a single issue, and backers could begin circulation petitions to place the issue before voters.
Proponents will need to gather more than 300,000 valid signatures from registered voters by early July to qualify for this year’s general election.
Last month, the Ballot Board signed off on a separate amendment effort, backed by the national Marijuana Policy Project and calling for the creation of a control commission to oversee the regulation of medical marijuana in the state.
Republicans in the Ohio House this week also announced medical marijuana legislation, with an eye toward passage before lawmakers break for the summer.
The Medical Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Amendment reviewed by the Ballot Board does not detail how medical marijuana would be regulated. Instead, it “guarantees the right of residents” to “possess, process, transport, use, share and cultivate” marijuana for medical purposes, with the state given power to tax and regulate production, sales and use.
Don Wirtshafter, an attorney from Athens County who is representing the amendment backers, left open the possibility of pursuing an initiated statute outlining how medical marijuana would be regulated, though he acknowledged the approval process would be daunting.
He called the Ohio House medical marijuana legislation announced this week “a very timid first step.”