Ohio’s medical pot maze

Republican Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger said he wasn’t stalling on consideration of medical marijuana when his chamber launched a task force and a series of public hearings on legalization earlier this year.

I guess he wasn’t kidding.

After years of pushing from advocates, lawmakers in the Ohio House are poised to consider a Republican-sponsored bill that would allow Ohioans to use marijuana for medicinal purposes at the direction of a licensed physician.

They don’t appear to be messing around, either. Rep. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, who headed the task force and who will spearhead the select committee considering the legislation, said he intends to move the bill rapidly through the chamber.

You can start keeping tabs on the process next week, because hearings are scheduled Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 3 p.m. and Thursdays at 11 a.m “until further notice.”

Schuring said he’d like to see the legislation passed out of the House by the end of the month, giving the Senate the month of May to complete its process.

Republican Senate President Keith Faber isn’t offering the same assurances – “Like everyone involved, we have a lot of questions and concerns that will naturally be addressed during the legislative process, and it’s impossible to say at this point what the final product will look like or even if we’ll have a final product,” he said in a released statement.

WHAT’S NEXT?

So where does that leave us?

Lawmakers are preparing to act on the legalization of medical marijuana, which polling has shown is supported by a majority of voting-age Ohioans.

Meanwhile, two groups have been given the green light to circulate petitions for separate constitutional amendments on the issue.

The Marijuana Policy Project has the lengthier of the two proposals, calling for the creation of a control commission to oversee the regulation of medical marijuana in the state.

The other, titled the Medicinal Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Amendment, is shorter, without all of the regulatory details. 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.

It’s not going to be easy (or inexpensive) for backers of either to gather the 300,000-plus signatures they’ll need in hand by early July to place their amendments before voters in November.

But the timing is interesting.

Lawmakers have scheduled sessions through the end of May, with “if needed” days through mid-June.

If they decide not to act, backers of either medical marijuana amendment effort still have time to submit their petitions to qualify for the general election. They just have to spend a lot of money and get circulators out on the streets posthaste to accomplish the task.

It’s probably a safe bet that a medical marijuana-focused amendment would get a more positive reception from voters in November than last year’s ill-fated ResponsibleOhio proposal. That’s not even mentioning how the eventual presidential ticket would affect turnout or support or opposition to a marijuana ballot issue.

The question is do marijuana opponents in the Legislature risk an outside group controlling the future of the issue or do they act now and ensure the state governs legalization? The next few weeks will be telling.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.