Husted: Ohio to vote on pot this year

Ohio voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to legalize marijuana with a constitutional amendment to institute a revolutionary proposal that backers say will create a billion-dollar industry in the next four years.

Secretary of State Jon Husted said Wednesday the private investor group ResponsibleOhio had collected 320,267 signatures of registered Ohio voters, 14,676 more than necessary to qualify for the general-election ballot. ResponsibleOhio spent more than $2 million since March on the petition drive to put its proposed Marijuana Legalization Amendment before voters.

ResponsibleOhio has been tracking the count through daily reports to Husted's office. Earlier Wedneday, before Husted's certification, Ian James, the group's executive director, sent out an email crowing that the group had made the ballot.

After Husted certified the petition result, James issued a statement: "It's time for marijuana legalization in Ohio, and voters will have the opportunity to make it happen this November -- we couldn't be more excited,. Drug dealers don't care about doing what's best for our state and its citizens. By reforming marijuana laws in November, we'll provide compassionate care to sick Ohioans, bring money back to our local communities and establish a new industry with limitless economic development opportunities."

The next step is before the Ohio Ballot Board, which meets Aug. 18 to determine ResponsibleOhio's ballot language and issue number.

The ambitious campaign by ResponsibleOhio is the best-financed effort in the nation's history to push back against the 1937 federal ban on marijuana. If voters say yes, the Buckeye State will be the sixth and, with nearly 11.6 million residents, the most populous jurisdiction to legalize marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia.

Millions of dollars ready for campaign in favor

ResponsibleOhio's investors have pledged to spend $20 million in the 83 days until Nov. 3 on a sophisticated election effort, including a bus tour, Internet advertising, television and radio advertising, voter registration drives and door-to-door canvassing. ResponsibleOhio has erected a professional political machine including the state's leading Democratic election lawyer and the data-analysis team that worked on President Obama's two races for the White House.

The group's televised pitches began Aug. 6 during a nationally broadcast debate of Republican primary candidates in Cleveland, before all the petition signatures had been counted.

But what could be the biggest hurdle to legalization also is on the Nov. 3 ballot. In June, the Ohio Legislature quickly wrote and placed on the ballot a measure now called Issue 2 that would prohibit "a monopoly, oligopoly or cartel" in Ohio, especially involving any federally controlled substance, such as marijuana.

Husted has said that if voters pass both measure, the legislative initiative would take precedence, although ResponsibleOhio disputes that evaluation. If both measures pass, the dispute will go to court.

James and proponents of the Marijuana Legalization Amendment say a legal industry would produce economic and social benefits and save the millions of dollars now spent policing the black market and imprisoning people for low-level offenses.

A ResponsibleOhio task force, led by Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, has forecast that a legal industry in Ohio could generate more than $2 billion a year by 2020.

Moving from prohibition to legalization

James and the ResponsibleOhio backers have said they felt moved to launch the initiative drive not simply because of the financial prospects but because the Ohio Legislature has refused for nearly 20 years to consider legalization bills, even if only for medical marijuana. Today, 28 states have medical-marijuana programs.

The five jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana first permitted doctors to prescribe marijuana as medicine. Passage of the ResponsibleOhio plan would make Ohio the first state to go from prohibition to full legalization for anyone over 21.

The most controversial aspect of ResponsibleOhio's proposal is a limit on the cultivation of the commercial crop to 10 farms, which are named in the Marijuana Legalization Amendment. Opponents have called this structure a monopoly, meaning owned by one, although the correct economic term is oligopoly, meaning owned by a few.

The farms have been purchased or put under purchase option by at least 20 wealthy investors, including reality-TV star and Cincinnati restaurateur Nick Lachey, retired star athlete Oscar Robertson, NFL player Frostee Rucker, local philanthropist Barbara Gould, fashion designer and Youngstown native Nanette Lapore, Covington beer and wine distributor Jennifer Doering and two descendants of President William Howard Taft, Woody and Dudley Taft Jr.

Under the proposal, southwest Ohio could become the state's marijuana capital: Three farms are in Hamilton, Butler and Clermont counties. All 10 farm owners have pledged to allow workers to unionize – winning the support of the largest Ohio locals of United Food and Commercial Workers.

The proposal also offers 1,150 licenses to get into other aspects of the business, from production and processing to retail stores. Local jurisdictions could hold elections to decide where to allow stores.

Every transaction from farm to the retail store will carry a 15 percent tax before expenses, in addition to the customary state business taxes. The sales tax will be 5 percent. The Deters report estimated the annual tax revenue in 2020 to be more than $500 million. Fifteen percent would pay for a state regulatory body, and the rest would be divided per capita among the counties, cities and towns.

The ResponsibleOhio plan would allow individual growers to buy a $50 annual license to raise up to four flowering plants and to have eight ounces of marijuana. But home growers may not sell.

Who's for and against legalization plan

A diverse coalition has spoken out against the proposed constitutional amendment, including the elected Republican political establishment. Gov. John Kasich has said he opposes legalization, and Attorney General Mike DeWine calls it "a stupid idea." Auditor David Yost has called the ResponsibleOhio plan "un-American." The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation also opposes the ResponsibleOhio plan.

Activists in the Ohio marijuana movement in general dislike the ResponsibleOhio plan as rich people creating an unfair edge for themselves and cutting out the little guy as Ohio joins the national Green Rush. The board of directors for the Ohio branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ousted the state president in part because of his support for ResponsibleOhio. But the national body has said it will back ResponsibleOhio as a flawed first step to legalization.

Ohio voters are in favor of legalization. In July, the most recent poll from Quinnipiac University found that Ohioans supported legalization 52 percent to 44 percent, a modest rise from the 51 percent majority found a year ago. The margin, however, remains thin enough to make a race of it for ResponsibleOhio backers; in other states, majorities in favor of legalization tend to melt by Election Day.

ResponsibleOhio's announcement that the initiative has enough signatures to make the ballot also is the latest development in a fractious paperwork battle between the organization and the Secretary of State's office. To make the ballot, ResponsibleOhio needs 305,591 signatures of registered Ohio voters. ResponsibleOhio hired 200 people at between $11 and $12 an hour to gather signatures and to register voters. So far, the group has spent more than $2 million just on the petition drive.

In mid-June, Husted warned that nearly all of the state's 88 county boards of elections reported problems with new-voter registrations coming from ResponsibleOhio. Husted said the problems verged on fraud.

On June 30, ResponsibleOhio turned in 695,273 signatures. After two weeks of review, Husted reported that 276,082 signatures were valid, and ResponsibleOhio got 10 more days to collect the balance of 29,509 signatures. On July 30, ResponsibleOhio turned in 95,572 signatures. The group also has turned in more than 100,000 voter registrations.

But Husted said he found continuing problems with the voter registrations so severe that he hired a special investigator, former Allen County Prosecutor David Bowers, of Lima, to look into the discrepancies. Husted also issued subpoenas to Ian James and for ResponsibleOhio documents.

Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Andy Douglas, a Republican who is representing ResponsibleOhio, said Husted's effort was done to chill the petition effort.

On the next step of its legalization strategy, ResponsibleOhio is already collecting signatures for the Fresh Start Act. If approved by voters in 2016, the initiative would provide a path to expungement of marijuana convictions that would not be crimes under legalization.