In the Nov. 2 election, Ohio voters opposed by a vote of 64.14 percent to 35.86 percent the controversial marijuana-legalization ballot Issue 2, according to the election results posted on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website. Voters passed by a vote of 51.69 percent to 48.31 percent the “anti-monopoly amendment,” which was created by state legislators in direct response to the marijuana initiative proposed by the group ResponsibleOhio. The marijuana-legalization initiative, while supported by a significant percentage of voters, has been criticized throughout its ballot campaign for its inclusion of 10 predetermined cultivation sites, which has not been the case in other state’s legalization initiatives and was widely referred to as a monopoly or oligopoly.
As the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) explained in a statement following the election, “The initiative has been controversial, even among many marijuana legalization supporters, because its drafters included a provision that set aside all of Ohio’s initial cultivation licenses for the drafters themselves.”
“Monopolies were the theme of this Election Day and voters said with a clear voice that there is no place for them in Ohio’s Constitution,” said Ohio Secretary of State John Husted in a statement released last night. “… To protect our individual rights voters passed Issue 2, which bans private monopolies and special interests from buying a spot in the state constitution for their own benefit. And despite over $25 million in ads, Ohioans were not fooled into putting a marijuana monopoly into the constitution. Ohio voters are smart people and said no to State Issue 3, which would have made the state’s drug issues worse, harming people and the economy,” he said.
ResponsibleOhio released a statement saying “the campaign starts anew tomorrow.” Executive Director Ian James commented, “We’d like to thank the hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who worked tirelessly to put Issue 3 on the ballot, educate friends and family members and who voted to bring marijuana reform to our state. We would have never gotten this far without your support. We trust the voters. We started the conversation, and we’re going to continue the conversation starting tomorrow. The status quo doesn’t work, it’s unacceptable and we’re not going away. All the things we’ve fought for are true. Ohioans still need treatment and deserve compassionate care. And our state needs the jobs and tax revenue that marijuana legalization will bring.”
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has released a statement saying that the Ohio vote is not indicative of how proposals to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol in at least five states will fare next year; “the 2016 initiatives do not include the widely unpopular ‘monopoly’ language that plagued the Ohio campaign, and they will benefit from heightened voter turnout during a presidential election,” according to the statement.
Mason Tvert, MPP’s director of communications, told Cannabis Business Times prior to the election results being in, “A loss in Ohio will have no effect on what happens in other states in 2015. Voters in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and other states are not going to base their votes on something that happened a year earlier in Ohio,” he said.
“The people of Ohio have shown that there is a strong base of support for legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana, but they understandably rejected a flawed approach to setting up that market,” Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association told Cannabis Business Times.
The results may come as a surprise to some. In a reader poll conducted by Cannabis Business Times (CBT) Nov. 2-3, 43 percent of voters said they thought Ohio voters would pass the marijuana-legalization initiative; 35 percent said they thought it would not pass. When asked whether they wanted the initiative to pass, 44 percent said yes, while 28 percent said they did not want it to pass.
Forty percent of CBT readers also thought that Ohio voters would pass Issue 2, the anti-monopoly amendment, which would have, in theory at least, negated Issue 3, the marijuana-legalization amendement. Thirty-three percent said they did not expect voters to pass Issue 2.
The strongest percentage (55 percent) of CBT readers voiced hopes that Ohio voters would not pass the anti-monopoly amendment, while 30 percent said they wanted the anti-monopoly amendment to pass.
One CBT reader who responded to the poll and indicated support for the marijuana-legalization initiative commented, “While the idea of restricted grow operations turns my stomach, it’s the only chance Ohio has at legalization.”
NCIA’s Smith commented, “This debate has laid the foundation 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”
Another CBT reader commented in the poll, “A monopoly should not be permitted in order to legalize medical Marijuana. The legislation should be rewritten before I’d vote for it.”
