Officials seek clarification on med marijuana laws

By JUSTIN DENNIS

jdennis@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Under federal guidelines, medical marijuana users in Ohio can’t purchase or carry firearms, but without the capability to confirm marijuana patients’ status or clarification of the statutes in play, local authorities said they aren’t sure how to best deal with the discrepancy between state and federal law.

Though medical marijuana was legalized in Ohio in 2016 – and a network of growers, processors and dispensers is now materializing in the Mahoning Valley – the drug remains a federally controlled substance.

According to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2011 guidelines, a federal prohibition keeping illegal drug users from possessing firearms extends to medical pot and overrides state law.

But there’s no way to know if concealed-carry permit applicants are using medical marijuana unless they divulge that information themselves – the honor system, essentially. Only doctors have access to patients’ medical marijuana status through the Ohio Board of Pharmacy.

“I think everybody is just feeling their way through this,” said Mahoning County Sheriff Jerry Greene.

“I really think if it was better though-out they would at least give sheriffs a better tool to check – a way to verify. At this point, we don’t have that it’s an honor system on that person. ... I don’t like it at all.”

If a current carrying a concealed weapon holder is busted with legal, medical pot, their license is instantly revoked, as the licenses conflict, said the sheriff’s records clerk Jackie Cunat. CCW holders busted for illegal pot are suspended for at least a year.

To qualify for a CCW permit in the first place, applicants must prove they’re not actively using drugs or drug-dependent – which is to say they haven’t been convicted of a drug charge higher than a minor misdemeanor within the past year. But possession of a small amount of marijuana is a minor misdemeanor in Ohio.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said he doesn’t know if many Ohio sheriffs are actually enforcing CCW revocations for medical pot. As more and more states move to medical marijuana, the issue of federal-state enforcement becomes unavoidable, he said.

“It’s time that Congress actually act on this,” Gains said.

“My understanding is you don’t get high with [medical marijuana]. If you don’t get high and it doesn’t affect your ability to drive or anything else, I think they should address it in legislation.”

Ohio county sheriffs issued 168,302 concealed-carry licenses last year, 69,375 of which were new licenses, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

A record number of renewals were also issued last year, as well as a record number of revocations – four times as many as in 2017.

The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office issued 1,757 new licenses last year and 1,379 renewals, and suspended or revoked a total 66 licenses, according to the attorney general’s report.

The Mahoning Valley’s first medical marijuana dispensary, FRX Health Dispensary in East Liverpool, opened in February. Riviera Creek LLC, the city’s North Side medical marijuana growing facility, harvested its first crop that month.

Quest Wellness Ohio has been approved to open a Market Street dispensary and has also obtained a state processor’s license for medical marijuana.