The marijuana legalization issue will appear as Issue 3 on Ohio ballots this November, but the group backing the issue plans to challenge the approved ballot language at the Ohio Supreme Court.
The Ohio Ballot Board, a five-member bipartisan panel led by Secretary of State Jon Husted, on Tuesday approved the language for that issue along party lines, with the two Democratic members voting against.
“It’s not balanced language and we believe that the language does not fairly inform the voters on what they’re being asked to vote upon,” Don McTigue, an attorney for ResponsibleOhio, said after the ballot board meeting.
McTigue said the language approved Tuesday is misleading and politically motivated, pointing to dozens of places where the language either adds or omits provisions of the proposed amendment.
For example, the approved language says “recreational use;” McTigue preferred “personal use.” And one paragraph could be construed as allowing Ohioans to buy more than a half pound of marijuana (the limit is 1 ounce but Ohioans could possess up to 8 ounces of homegrown marijuana.)
ResponsibleOhio’s proposed personal and medical marijuana amendment would legalize marijuana use and sales, with commercial cannabis grown only at 10 sites already promised to campaign investors. State lawmakers didn’t like that aspect of the issue, so they drafted their own amendment to try to block ResponsibleOhio’s marijuana issue.
Husted set the tone for Tuesday’s meeting by welcoming everyone to “Monopoly Day in Ohio” — whether to outlaw them or grant a new one.
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