COLUMBUS, Ohio — Backers of an Ohio recreational marijuana legalization proposal aim to place the initiated statute before voters in November 2023, an attorney representing the group said Monday.
Meantime, the General Assembly may pass by the end of the year a bill that would allow the drug for any condition “that the patient’s symptoms may reasonably be expected to be relieved from medical marijuana.”
Currently, medical marijuana is allowed for 22 conditions – such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, ulcerative colitis and Tourette’s syndrome.
Patients have expressed frustration over the program’s limitations. For instance, autism spectrum disorder is not an allowed condition, even though parents of children on the spectrum who self-harm said they would like to try marijuana.
Ohio Senate Bill 261 and the recreational proposal come after these criticisms.
The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the recreational campaign, is made up of marijuana business owners.
It raised $212,500 in the first half of 2022, according to its most recent campaign finance report, filed in July. Last year it raised $1.3 million. The campaign initially tried to get on ballots in November but delayed the campaign after a lawsuit and settlement with the state.
Of the $212,500 raised this year, $150,000 came from the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization organization.
Another $50,000 came from the Akron company that owns Klutch Cannabis, an Ohio medical marijuana cultivator and processor, and its founder and CEO Adam Thomarios.
The remaining $12,500 came from Youngstown-based Riviera Creek, another cultivator and processor, and Brian Kessler and Daniel Kessler, the CEO and chairman.
Earlier this year, the Just Like Alcohol campaign and state legislative leaders went to court over deadlines and timing of the multi-step process necessary to get an initiated statute on the ballot.
They settled out of court, and under the settlement, the recreational proposal is to be presented to the Ohio General Assembly in early January. The legislature has four months to pass a bill similar to it, said Tom Haren, the attorney working on the recreational campaign.
The legislature is likely not to act on the proposal. Legislative leaders have said they won’t think Ohio should have recreational marijuana. So in early May, the proposal is expected to return to the backers, who need to get about 130,000 signatures to get it on the November 2023 ballot.
The campaign will have about eight weeks to get those signatures if it wants to get on the November ballot. If it cannot get enough signatures by early July, then it could aim for the November 2024 ballot, and continue to collect more signatures.
“We expect that we’ll be able to do it,” Haren said about the deadlines for 2023. “We’ll have staff get ready. Our intention is to give Ohio voters an opportunity to weigh in if the General Assembly continues to ignore them.”
