At the stroke of midnight, recreational marijuana became legal in Ohio.
Voters approved last month that adults 21 and older are allowed to use and grow cannabis.
However, Ohio Republicans may be putting the brakes on it.
On Monday, Ohio Senate Republicans proposed banning at-home growing, increasing the substance’s tax rate, and altering how those taxes get distributed.
The ballot measure, dubbed Issue 2, passed on the Nov. 7 election with 57% of the vote - but since it is a citizen’s vote, the legislature is allowed to make tweaks to the law.
Every Ohioan needs to contact their representative and explain that we voted on what we wanted including where the taxes go
I already contacted mine. And yes, it’s passed the senate, contact them anyway, make sure they understand you don’t want the cops getting money, you don’t want this to go to building new fucking jails (like seriously wtf), we specified 12 plants per household, and we voted to treat it like alcohol so it’s really fucked up that they’re trying to ban sharing a bowl between adults or picking up some bud for your buds.
I’ve emailed my representative, Darrell Kick, twice now. Once before Wednesday’s vote and again yesterday while the house was discussing further changes to issue 2.
The onslaught of emails they received the first time is the whole reason why they started panicking and couldn’t get anything passed on Wednesday.
It worked, and I also highly suggest everyone do the same.
But please write your own email, hundreds of identical emails won’t send the same message as hundreds of unique voices all saying similar things.
Send actual letters too. That is so rare it alarms them apparently.
Yeah I saw them ceding to phone calls and realized that enough people bother them they might actually change.
What you guys need to do is do a lawsuit and sue the government. Making tweeks is one thing, straight ignoring the will of the people is another.
We did that with the voting maps and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the maps illegal, they ignored the Ohio Supreme Court and did as they please anyway.
Lawsuits have no power with the current administration here.
Take them back to court and, on I’m not an attorney but there has to be some penalties the Supreme Court can hand down for ignoring what they say.
Maybe present alternate voting maps and ask the Supreme Court to put those into place.
Also ask for jail time for those that ignored the Supreme Court the last time
Again not an attorney but it seems to me that there has to be an option.
This requires enforcement, and Republicans don’t enforce rules on each other. It’s a big club and we’re not in it.
True. Is it possible to take this to the Supreme Court and claim violation of rights?
You mean the majority republican USSC that has already done some pretty insanely right-wing things like get rid of well established Roe v. Wade ruling on behalf of their party???
Issue with this is it takes a long time, and during that period of time, a bunch of conservative justices can be (and have been) appointed.
Did like one thing they added, but feels like it should have been in from the start.
https://www.10tv.com/mobile/article/news/local/ohio/ohio-senate-bill-would-allow-medical-marijuana-dispensaries-sell-legal-pot-amongst-other-changes/530-1feddd45-a416-4109-a506-6c88f7e55ef6
Yeah exactly I love it and want that to stay and that’s something we left for them to decide.
I am however wondering if we need a constitutional amendment granting a grace period for ballot initiatives to prevent them from being altered or repealed by the legislature for X amount of time. If after the effects of legalization have settled something needs changed sure let the legislature change it, but they seriously think they have the right to preemptively change it. My wife suggests 5 years so they have to be re-elected first.
Shouldn’t people who need medical cannabis be able to get their prescription reliably? It kinda seems like there’s a real risk of recreational users gobbling up their supply, leaving them without treatment for whatever they’re going through.
The biggest issue in most states with legal recreational weed is excess supply tanking the market. I understand the concern, but it’s unlikely to pose a significant challenge in the short term, and it’s possible to legislate that some quantity be set aside for medicinal purposes if need be in the long term.
https://apnews.com/article/cannabis-marijuana-420-e11c85fbaa6f0b82c1b0aa52312c4187
There have been issues briefly in other states of a shortage of supply after starting a rec program, caused by regulatory restrictions of course in the face of booming demand. After that, though, the issue has I overwhelmingly been an excess on the market… California, Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma.