Banning marijuana growing at home, increasing the substance’s tax rate and altering how those taxes get distributed are among vast changes Ohio Senate Republicans proposed Monday to a marijuana legalization measure approved by voters last month.
The changes emerged suddenly in committee just days before the new law is set to take effect, though their fate in the full Senate and the GOP-led House is still unclear.
The ballot measure, dubbed Issue 2, passed on the Nov. 7 election with 57 percent of the vote and it set to become law this Thursday, making Ohio the 24th state to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use. But as a citizen-initiated statute, the Legislature is free to make tweaks on it, of which they’re attempting plenty.
The thing is, we tried to pass legization as a constitutional amendment several times in past years and it always failed.
It was tried once with Issue 3 and it was a terrible proposal that would have restricted the marijuana market to specific investors and enshrined that language in the constitution so it would only be changeable with another amendment.
I don’t disagree with you regarding issue 3. All I’m suggesting, is that the citizen ballot initiative was the only way it was going to pass. But you should always expect Ohio Republicans to be bastards.