Ohio Medical Marijuana Campaign Gets Green Light to Collect Signatures

The initiative introduced by Ohioans for Medical Marijuana has been approved. Now supporters must collect 305,591 signatures by July 6^th in order to be included on the November ballot. The amendment would allow qualified adults to use, buy and grow marijuana with a physician’s recommendation.

Some of the qualifying conditions include cancer, PTSD and seizure disorders. According to Cleveland.com, minors would require parental permission and a physician’s recommendation to use medical marijuana. Large-scale growers would be required to pay a $500,000 application fee and 15 licenses would be appropriated for large-scale growers. The program details also outline that small/medium-scale growers would have unlimited numbers of licenses available.

Senator Bill Coley is leery of the amendment language as it would allow for monopolies to form. Voters rejected monopolies in the 2015, regarding marijuana legalization in Ohio. He said, “I thought the voters kinda decided before in the last election that when something’s a monopoly we have to flag it for a monopoly.”

The attorney for Ohioans for Medical Marijuana, Chris Finney, claims that the only duty of the board at this time was to decide whether the initiative constituted as a single amendment or several. It was decided that the initiative is a single amendment.

Mason Tvert, of Marijuana Policy Project, said via email, “A lot of our volunteers are family members of patients or patients themselves, so they’re incredibly motivated. The initiative process isn’t easy, but it pales in comparison to undergoing chemotherapy or witnessing your child have seizures on a daily basis.”

Further discussion regarding the need for additional ballot measures may come in the future. The focus, in Ohio, is to gain the required amount of signatures from registered voters.