Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly'

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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly'

Post by bentech »

your average well funded marijuana activist is trash



A controversial marijuana legalization initiative doesn't have a lot of endorsements, but it does have a lot of money--and some favorable polling.
By Phillip Smith /

AlterNet October 15, 2015


It's now less than three weeks until Buckeye State voters head to the polls in an off-year election, and chances are good that they will make Ohio the first Midwestern state to legalize marijuana. A poll this week that asked specifically if respondents supported the initiative on the ballot had 56% saying yes.

They will be voting on Issue 3, a controversial legalization proposal sponsored by ResponsibleOhio that would legalize both medical and recreational marijuana use, cultivation, and distribution. The measure would establish a 10-grower "monopoly" on commercial marijuana production (but not sales) and allow individuals to grow up to four plants for personal use if they pay a $50 license fee and if they keep the plants hidden from public view.

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But despite the favorable poll numbers—even better than the 53% approval of a generic marijuana legalization question in a poll two weeks ago—victory is by no means a sure thing. It is an off-year election with traditionally low voter turn-out among groups likely to be supportive, the effort is opposed by the state's political establishment, and even if it wins, it could be tangled up in court for years because that GOP establishment has placed an initiative on the ballot, Issue 2, specifically designed to invalidate Issue 3. That initiative would bar constitutional "monopolies."

If both initiatives pass, state officials say Issue 2 will supersede Issue 3, but other legal experts say it's not so clear, especially if the legalization initiative wins more votes than the anti-monopoly initiative, which the new poll suggests it will. If both pass, legalization will, at best, be delayed until the mess is sorted out in the courts.

With the exception of NORML, national drug reform groups have kept their distance. The NORML board of directors endorsed Issue 3 last month, but neither the Marijuana Policy Project nor the Drug Policy Alliance have, both of which endorse marijuana legalization in general, have endorsed this initiative.

When it comes to in-state endorsements, ResponsibleOhio looks pretty isolated, with support from the Ohio ACLU, some UFCW locals, and a handful of elected officials, while those taking a stand against the measure include the state Green, Libertarian, and Republican parties, business groups, medical groups, law enforcement groups, children's advocates, and many state political figures, including Republican Gov. John Kasich and Attorney General Mike DeWine.

The initiative has also infuriated many Ohio pot activists, who see their years of work going up in smoke in the face of well-heeled investors in ResponsibleOhio, who have generally had little to do with marijuana reform, but who know a money-making opportunity when they see one. By buying into the campaign, those investors have secured their positions controlling the 10 designated commercial grows.

"We don't support the ResponsibleOhio initiative because we don't believe it achieves the goals of legalization, said Sri Kavuru, president of Ohioans to End Prohibition (OTEP), which is campaigning to get its own legalization initiative on the 2016 ballot. "I testified in favor of the anti-monopoly amendment, and I believe it will pass and get more votes than ResponsibleOhio," he told the Chronicle in August.

The forthrightly named Citizens Against ResponsibleOhio doesn't mind siding with the Republican legislature, either, said the group's leader, Aaron Weaver.

"It is very interesting that all these different parties have come together with the same purpose in mind, to stop the hijacking of our constitution by private interests," Weaver said. "It's very strange indeed, but the collaboration of different groups for a mutually beneficial and moral purpose, I think, is a good thing."

It's also caused a split in Ohio NORML, with the state group throwing out its former leader, Rob Ryan, over his position in support of the initiative.

But the state's largest pro-medical marijuana organization, the Ohio Patients Group, endorsed Issue 3 this week. The group said that, given the lack of a viable alternative and the legislature's refusal to advance the cause, telling its members to vote against the initiative would be doing them a disservice.

"It wasn't a perfect plan, but politics is never the art of the perfect, it's the art of possible," Pardee said.


But when you've got money, you don't need that many friends. In a neat political and financial move, ResponsibleOhio and its chairman, Ian James, are using those investor dollars to finance their campaign advertising. The group has spent $3.1 million so far on TV ads, and has millions more where that came from to get them through the election.

The first ad, "Bring Addy Home," which began airing in late August, features Heather Benton, who moved to Colorado in order to obtain medical marijuana to treat her four-year-old daughter's seizures.

"We want to move back to Ohio, but we can't because her medicine is illegal there," says the exiled Benton. "It is time for marijuana reform. It is time to go home."

One of the latest ads takes on the charge from opponents that the initiative would create a monopoly in the state's Constitution. (Voters did something quite similar back in 2009, when they approved a constitutional initiative allowing a strictly limited number of casinos.). This initiative isn't a monopoly, the ad argues.

"Like most states that legalized marijuana, it initially limits the number of growers with strict regulation," a woman says in the ad. "That’s a regulated industry without creating a monopoly."

Can ResponsibleOhio pull it off? We won't know until the votes are counted, but if marijuana legalization wins in swing-state Ohio in 2015, that could take the politics of pot legalization to a whole new level in front of the 2016 general election, where the issue is already likely to be on the ballot in a handful of states—Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada—and maybe more.
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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly'

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Ohio Voters Reject Legal Pot with a 'Corporate Face'

Ballot initiative would have legalized recreational and medical use of pot, but would have granted exclusive growing rights to wealthy investors

byNadia Prupis, staff writer


Ohio on Tuesday voted down a contentious marijuana legalization bill that would have allowed medical and recreational use of pot but also granted exclusive production rights to a small network of 10 growing facilities.

Opponents of Issue 3, which included some legalization advocates, warned that it would help create a "marijuana monopoly" for the wealthy investors who owned the would-be production sites and were bankrolling the measure.

"The people of Ohio have understandably rejected a deeply flawed, monopolistic approach to marijuana reform that failed to garner broad support from advocates or industry leaders," National Cannabis Industry Association executive director Aaron Smith said on Tuesday after the vote. "This debate has shown that there is a strong base of support for legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana. Now the foundation has been laid for a potential 2016 effort that would put forward a more common-sense initiative and have a major impact on the presidential conversation in the process."

Issue 3, backed by a group called ResponsibleOhio, would also have allowed adults over 21 years old to use, grow, and purchase small amounts of marijuana for recreational use and allowed others to use it medicinally. If it passed, Ohio would have become the first state in the country to end weed prohibition altogether without first legalizing medical marijuana.

But the controversy over corporate licenses was troubling enough to turn off even the staunchest advocates.

As David Graham, writing for The Atlantic, explains, "The business model was meant to serve a double purpose: It would both draw in strong monetary support for the ballot issue, and it would put a sober, corporate face on cannabis, soothing the nerves of swing-state Ohioans wary of a hippie takeover."

However, as Ohio State University law professor Douglas Berman explained to Graham, even the most ardent marijuana legalization supporters didn't buy it and came out strongly "against corporatization" of the cannabis industry.

A number of high-profile beneficiaries backed the measure, including former boy-band star Nick Lachey, fashion designer Nanette Lepore, and retired NBA player Oscar Robertson, who were reportedly asked to contribute $4 million apiece to fund the pro campaign. Supporters argued that the Marijuana Growth, Cultivation and Extraction (MGCE) facilities would help the state regulate the industry.

But recent polls indicated that warnings of an exclusive marketplace pushed voters to hold out for a more ideal legalization effort.

"I don't see the defeat of Issue 3 slowing the national momentum for ending marijuana prohibition," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Voters, including those who would like to see marijuana legally regulated and taxed, were clearly turned off by the oligopoly provision."





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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly

Post by Jesús Malverde »

This was probably a worse legalization plan than even the status quo of criminalized cannabis policy and that ain't easy to do. I'm actually glad the measure failed.
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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly

Post by bentech »

i get the same vibe of EVERYONE i hear
who makes it to the airwaves supposedly representing us...
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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly

Post by twilson »

Spent time in Ohio once.

Maybe I am totally wrong on this. Might just be my bias or the area I was in but it was the most bland homogenized area I have ever been in. Bear in mind that I am kinda fond of the area. I have nothing against Ohio like I do the south.
If Muley can scruff along i can too.

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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly

Post by MadMoonMan »

Free enterprise won for a while in Ohio. Yay!

Hopefully, next years ballot will do a little better. It wasn't about legalization it was about preventing an economic monopoly.

Currently, Ohio allows possesion up to not quite 3 oz. $100 ticket.

Growing up to same about. If you dont weigh the dirt and stems? If not over not quite 3 oz. $100 ticket.

I forget them foreigners liters and we based our "frenchy sophisticated system Yanks on weight of largest horse balls."

An American Yank replies to above acerbic wit. "So you Frencys are cupping slimey hairy horse balls in your hands to determine how much a pound should weigh? Each one of you taking a turn hefting the weight of hairy horse balls. Over and over again while sipping wine and going. 'HMMM' "

It takes so much time to decide 'HMMM'. You look over at Pierre and offering him one of the questionably heavy warm/cool/slimey horse testicles.

Since Pierre is a new trainee you have to explain to him how to handle horse testicles and judge them by weight. Lets not forget the Macro Horse Testicle Handling 1963 edition is the bible of Horse testicle handling so you should get a copy if you intend to pursue this as a hobby or career.

See, in horse testicle handling as in most affairs in life, things are not quite as easy as they first appear to be.

Rule #1 Where one testicle goes the other follows.

Rule #2 Cold hands lead to Satan's misfortunes.

Rule #2 Ok I forget hic 3

Ouch oh yeah. Touches steel plate in head uh oh yeah! #3 Just cuz you got holt of both horse balls. Don't mean the horse is gonna follow.

*um theres a part 2 to. .. taps on steel plate . oh.. yeah.. um.. drop something and run? drop and fall on the g round? no... drop the balls and run?
Just because I can't spell misanthrope doesn't mean I'm completely stupid.

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Ohio About to Create America's First 'Marijuana Monopoly'

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New Evidence Emerges of Vote Counting Chicanery in Ohio Pot Ballot Initiative

More screenshots of Tuesday's vote count indicate massive vote flipping.

By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet November 7, 2015




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Freedom is not for sell yet
Just because I can't spell misanthrope doesn't mean I'm completely stupid.

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Post by MadMoonMan »

Honest people dont chicanery.
Just because I can't spell misanthrope doesn't mean I'm completely stupid.

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Post by MadMoonMan »

Beaners man.. I'm telling ya.

Beaners eat beans!

Beaners will kick you in the face!

BeeyeeN-NERS!

Beeee eee ee eenn nneyers!


eat beans.

Buyaheeeeeennnerrrs!
Just because I can't spell misanthrope doesn't mean I'm completely stupid.

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