Six-Month Measure Needed to Evaluate Issue, City Officials Say. MIAMISBURG - Miamisburg is moving to become the latest Miami Valley community to place a temporary ban on medical marijuana. The city is considering a six-month ban on issuing and processing "any permits allowing retail dispensaries, cultivators, or processors of marijuana" in the city, according to a proposed ordinance. Last month Beavercreek City Council approved a similar measure while Troy voted in favor of a 180-day moratorium. Those cities' actions and the measure before Miamisburg City Council tonight follow Gov. John Kasich's signing in June of a bill that allows medical marijuana to be prescribed for certain ailments. [continues 287 words]
Ohio Supreme Court Board Asked to Weigh In. Attorneys are asking whether Ohio's new medical marijuana law that bars employers from disciplining professionals from working with marijuana businesses applies to them. Lawyers have submitted at least two requests for formal opinions on the matter to the state Supreme Court's Board of Professional Conduct. Only the state's high court can discipline licensed attorneys. Attorneys want to know whether lawyers can use medical marijuana, own or operate medical marijuana businesses and represent marijuana cultivators, processors, dispensaries, patients and caregivers. The new medical marijuana law bars professional license holders from being disciplined "solely for engaging in professional or occupational activities related to medical marijuana." [continues 208 words]
Proposal Scrapped Over Concerns About Burden on the State. COLUMBUS (AP) - A legislative proposal to regulate medical marijuana through Ohio's pharmacy board was scrapped Tuesday over concerns the rare setup nationally would create an undue burden on the state. Republican Sen. David Burke, a Marysville pharmacist behind the idea, called the arrangement the most responsible way to oversee marijuana as medicine. He said changes introduced in the Senate Government Oversight Committee on Tuesday were needed to strike a workable compromise. [continues 465 words]
Advocates Say Supervised Facilities Can Save Lives. Across the United States, heroin and other drug users have died in alleys behind convenience stores, on city sidewalks and in the bathrooms of fast-food joints - because no one was around to save them when they overdosed. An alarming 47,000 American overdose deaths in 2014 has pushed elected leaders from coast to coast to consider government-sanctioned sites where heroin users can shoot up under the supervision of a doctor or nurse who can administer an antidote if necessary. [continues 411 words]
Society Goes From Racist Approach to Empathy. The Rev. Mike Starks witnessed the destruction of crack cocaine, but not from the sidelines - he was a self-described gangster and drug addict before he became a minister. The Akron community activist recalls authorities responding to the epidemic, which is said to have lasted from 1984 to the early 1990s, with the all-out War on Drugs. Lawmakers enacted mandatory prison sentences for dealers. Stories in the media blamed addicts for their choices and told of gang-ravaged inner cities. [continues 865 words]
More than a token, but something short of tokin': That's the Ohio General Assembly's task in trying to craft a bill legalizing Ohioans' use of medical marijuana. The science may or may not be there, at least not entirely. But what looks like a public consensus seems to be. And that consensus is that marijuana's chemical components can help Ohioans fighting certain illnesses or enduring, say, chemotherapy. Pending in a House committee is House Bill 523, a bipartisan medical marijuana plan sponsored by Reps. Stephen Huffman of Tipp City and Kirk Schuring of Canton, both Republicans, and Dan Ramos, a Lorain Democrat. Huffman's a physician. He earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Ohio (now the University of Toledo's College of Medicine and Life Sciences). Among those praising the House for taking up the medical marijuana issue: Sen. Kenny Yuko, a Richmond Heights Democrat, a longtime proponent of medical marijuana. [continues 461 words]
Patients, Caregivers Say Pending Ohio Bill Has Numerous Flaws. Even if Ohio lawmakers act swiftly on pending legislation to legalize pot as medicine, Ohioans for Medical Marijuana leaders on Wednesday said they'll keep pushing to put a constitutional amendment before voters this fall. Patients and caregivers said that the bill pending in the Ohio House doesn't go far enough to protect them against losing jobs, will take too long to implement, prohibits home grow and fails to provide a concrete list of ailments that would qualify someone to get medical marijuana. [continues 474 words]
Second Group Gets Go-Ahead to Gather Signatures for Ballot. COLUMBUS - A second grassroots group got the go-ahead on Thursday to circulate petitions to put a medical marijuana question before voters in November while lawmakers released more details of their plan. The Ohio Ballot Board certified the "Medicinal Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Amendment," clearing the way for GrassrootsOhioans to collect 305,591 valid voter signatures by July 6 to qualify for the November ballot. Another group, Ohioans for Medical Marijuana, is already in the field collecting signatures to get its proposed constitutional amendment on the fall ballot. [continues 213 words]
Ohio Ballot Board Gives Go-Ahead to Secure Names Before Election. A skeptical Ohio Ballot Board on Thursday gave supporters of a medical marijuana constitutional amendment the go-ahead to begin collecting signatures for the fall election. The board, with only three members present, voted 3-0 to approve the proposal by the Marijuana Policy Project, a national organization working with Ohioans for Medical Marijuana, a state affiliate. The group must gather 305,591 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters to put the issue on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. [continues 239 words]
Measure Could Appear Before Ohio Voters in November. COLUMBUS - Backers of a medical marijuana legalization measure cleared the initial hurdle in the process of placing an issue on the statewide ballot. National group Marijuana Policy Project and its Ohio political action committee Ohioans for Medical Marijuana want to legalize marijuana use for certain medical conditions, with approval from a physician, through a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine on Friday certified the group's petition summary as a "fair and truthful" summary of the proposed law. DeWine rejected the group's initial petition language, and revised language included additional medical conditions that would qualify a person to use marijuana. [continues 251 words]
Ohio may once again debate the pros and cons of marijuana this year, but not in the same context as in 2015. This time around, many believe it will focus on the medicinal use of marijuana and that use only. Currently there is talk about two different groups that may bring the medical marijuana issue into play for Ohioans. First the legislature, both House and Senate, is taking up this issue this spring and summer. Each is asking for both citizen and business input as to the merits of medical marijuana use in Ohio, and if there are any particular concerns either of those two constituencies have if our state's elected leaders should decide to pass some form of medical-related legislation. [continues 503 words]
A report in Harper's magazine is getting attention for a theory on how the so-called war on drugs began during the Nixon administration. Reporter Dan Baum looks at the origins of the policy, and offers a bizarre quote fromJohn Erlichman, Nixon's domestic policy adviser. Harper's editor, Ellen Rosenbush, writes that Erlichman told Baum the Nixon team cooked up the war on drugs to discredit groups who disagreed with it - African-Americans and young protestors: "'Did we know we were lying about the drugs?' Ehrlichman told Baum in 1994. 'Of course we did.' The Nixon White House thought of the antiwar left and black people as enemies. 'But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.'" Hmmm. Your thoughts? Email rrollins@coxohio. com. [end]
Nancy Reagan's recent death was a reminder of the shallow moralizing of the Just Say No anti-drug campaign she once championed. Thankfully, attitudes have changed. We're more attuned to the fact that untreated mental health issues often are a precursor to drug use. Nancy's slogan won't help much there. Most people realize that the war on drugs, begun under President Richard Nixon, has failed. And there's growing public awareness that we've let our jails and prisons become warehouses for people who need treatment - and who needed it long before they took a criminal turn. [continues 417 words]
Attorney General Mike DeWine has, for a fourth time, rejected one group's effort to get a medical marijuana question on Ohio's ballot. DeWine said Friday he found at least 11 defects in the latest constitutional amendment proposed by the group Ohio Medical Cannabis Care LLC. He says the summary language states that persons over the age of 21 must obtain a registration card or certificate from the group to grow medical marijuana, sometimes called cannabis. But the amendment itself says all patients over the age of 21 "possess the right to grow medical cannabis." His office found the summary and full text contained other inconsistent statements. DeWine's earlier rejections were in July, October and January. [end]
Attorney General Noted 3 Errors in the Proposal. A medical marijuana ballot proposal aiming for the November election was dealt a setback Friday when Attorney General Mike DeWine rejected the petition. The Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C., submitted its petition March 3. The group would have to gather 305,291 signatures of registered voters to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall. The national organization is working through an Ohio affiliate, Ohioans for Medical Marijuana. After examining the wording of the proposal, DeWine rejected it because of three errors, including a confusion about the number of medical marijuana cultivation facilities. He also found fault with a provision that would prevent marijuana users from being penalized for "operating a motor vehicle, aircraft, train, or motorboat while impaired by marijuana." There was also a mistake about the date for obtaining a valid medical marijuana registration card. [continues 97 words]
Issues Proposed for Ballot; Legislative Study Underway. The push to legalize marijuana isn't going away in Ohio. Two medical-marijuana issues are proposed for the fall ballot, and the legislature is looking into legislation regarding potential medical uses for pot. While no one is pitching a for-profit plan for recreational marijuana, as ResponsibleOhio did before Ohio voters dumped it last fall, there might be openings in the new proposals to turn marijuana into cash. The Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C., group that has been instrumental in the passage of marijuana initiatives in other states, appears to have the proposal with the best organization and funding behind it. If approved, the initiative would allow about 215,000 patients with qualifying medical conditions to use marijuana as prescribed by a doctor; permit patients to grow marijuana for their own use, or buy it from retail dispensaries; restrict the use of marijuana in public places or while driving; and create a state Medical Marijuana Control Division to oversee the system. Ohio would join 23 other states with medical marijuana laws or amendments in place. [continues 494 words]
Opponents Say It's Time to Focus on Recovery. As seizure rates and heroin-related deaths spike in Ohio, some lawmakers want stricter punishments for drug dealers. But others argue that focusing on dealers simply perpetuates a failed 40-year-long War on Drugs policy, and it's time to focus on recovery for addicts. House Bill 171 would allow an individual to be labeled a "major drug offender" for carrying 100 grams of heroin - down from the current 250 grams. The bill passed the House last year 82-16 and is now in Senate committee hearings. [continues 331 words]
Prosecutors dismissed the first of what could be many more drug cases tossed because they involved a police detective accused of selling seized drugs who hanged himself in jail early Monday. Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said his office was auditing the cases in which Reynoldsburg Officer Tye L. Downard participated as a Reynoldsburg officer or as a member of the county's drug task force from 2013 until now. So far, investigators have found 50 cases, O'Brien said. [continues 301 words]
Reynoldsburg Cop Worked With Drug Task Force. A Reynoldsburg police detective who has worked for years with the county's drug task force was arrested on federal charges that he used his connections to deal drugs, including drugs that might have been taken from what was seized by his police division. The arrest, officials say, could affect nearly 50 cases that now must be reviewed. Tye L. Downard, 43, of Westerville, was taken into custody on Thursday on charges that accuse him of carrying out more than 20 drug deliveries to another person since October, involving heroin, cocaine, marijuana and Percocet pills. He is charged with possession with intent to distribute and distribution of controlled substances. He was in the Delaware County jail Thursday night. [continues 87 words]
Group Has Trouble Raising Funds to Get Measure on Ballot. COLUMBUS (AP) - A group that had gathered signatures to put a marijuana legalization proposal before Ohio voters this year said that effort is on hold after it had trouble fundraising for the campaign. The Legalize Ohio 2016 campaign instead plans to partner with other advocates on efforts to legalize medical marijuana and to reduce criminal penalties for having marijuana, Cleveland.com reported. Its political action committee, Ohioans to End Prohibition, reported having only $268 at the end of last month. The roughly 80,000 signatures it had collected don't expire and could be used to qualify for a future ballot. [continues 164 words]
