We have a correction on this. The Ohio Medical Cannabis Amendment ballot language that originally was rejected by the Ohio Attorney General allowed for double the pot than specified in the competing group’s ammendment. But no longer. The recently approved version of the proposed amendment that may go before voters doesn’t put a limit on the amount of weed a patient could have. The amount would presumably be decided by the state. Exact wording noted below.
Supporters of medical marijuana, you’ve got some homework to do: Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has approved a second ballot initiative to legalize pot in Ohio, thus increasing the likelihood that you’ll have not one, but two ways to make ganja legal this year.
And what were those two ways again? The Ohio Medical Cannabis Amendment wants state-level control of medical marijuana, allows patients to squirrel away up to 7 ounces of pot, says that, “eligible residents shall have the right to use medical Cannabis to alleviate their suffering and to possess an amount of medical Cannabis sufficient to meet their medical needs.” A spokeswoman says they expect to be on the November ballot.
But the Cannabis Amendment has its critics — most notably backers of the competing Ohio Alternative Treatment Amendment, which was approved in October.
“From studying the history of other states, the bureaucratic obstruction of medical marijuana laws after passage is very strong,” says Alternative Treatment spokesman Ryan Maitland. “If you think the casinos saw delays in implementation, you haven’t seen anything yet.” He adds that the cannabis laws that have faced the most delay are those that dictate a “top down” regulatory approach, which his group is not cool with.
The Alternative Treatment camp favors local regulation and would allow patients to possess only 3.5 ounces of weed. “Our goal is to bring forth an idea that is crafted in a centrist manner, so that a vast majority of Ohioans can support it,” Maitland says.
Both groups require nearly 400,000 signatures by July to get a ballot spot come November. Both say they have hundreds of volunteers but need more, and while Cannabis Amendment backers are mum on funding, the Alternative Treatment group says it’s shaking down every pot fan it can find.
“With the great number of signatures needed in Ohio, they will have to have paid petitioners,” says Morgan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project, a national organization that has supported similar movements in other states. He adds that neither Ohio group will see his money: The Policy Project is throwing its dough behind Colorado, where legalization of recreational pot use is up for bids.
This article appears in Feb 1-7, 2012.
uhhhhhh what this is so stupid a group that claims they are for alternative medicine wants to petition this bill simply because they don’t like the quantity you would be able to possess? now that’s just plain silly and selfish.
those ingrate medical people without us recreational users they’d still be choking down pharmaceuticals that just make them worse off. and on top of that a lot of the people complaining about it are probably just recreational users hiding behind back pain instead of people who really need it for medical uses like cancer patients so those “sick” people can lay at the foot of the prohibitionists like dogs so they can have their bone and not be smacked on the nose. what audacity.
The Ohio Medical Cannabis Act of 2012 seems to make much more sense. I have to say, as an objective bystander, to see another group attacking the second group leads me to believe that the first group who is being critical here is not comprised of genuine people who care about the cause. If they were, they would be supportive of more people working on the issue in the state, not hating on a second group that seems to have developed a much more sound and researched amendment.
Marijuana Policy Project has yet really to accomplish much through their efforts. Following the trend of NORML, they seem to be one of those groups that is more interested in plush jobs pretending they are doing something than getting something done. I encourage people to support their LOCAL/STATE efforts to change marijuana laws and quit wasting their resources paying for plush jobs in D.C. for former stoners who clean up nice to pretend they are doing something on our behalf. Hopefully the Peter Lewis and John Sperlings of the world have wised up and are taking a more hands on approach to where they put their resources to change these draconian laws.
Per Mr. Novak’s statements: I am a supporter of legalization, aka taxing and regulating cannabis just like alcohol/tobacco. No question in my mind the substance should be legal. However, medical marijuana in some states has driven public opinion that the sky would not fall when it was legal and this has helped the effort to legalize. Unfortunately for you, sir, your approach would be a failing strategy, as there is not yet the public opinion in Ohio, statewide, to support legalization of cannabis. So, based on your comments, we should write one that would do just that to protect your recreational use and through hundreds of thousands of dollars at it so it would fail? I am glad, sir, you are not in charge of any aspect of our movement. I encourage you to stay on the sidelines and leave it up to smarter folks.
The first amendment says the root system on a plant can’t be more than 3 inches for a grower. Who comes up with such stupidity, i ask? No idea… obviously not someone who has ever seen a grow operation. That is one major difference. Also, the first amendment limits the number of dispensaries to like two in the entire state? Again, what kind of dumbass comes up with that? No wonder these folks started a new petition….
And thanks a lot, Ms. Maude Campbell, for the worst reporting ever in describing the differences between them so we the people could be educated as to which one we should support. A little bit a light reading and it is obvious that the Ohio Medical Cannabis Act of 2012 is the only choice on the table.
I read a little of the article , then a little of the comments and I am confused. Can I buy a medical fat-boy pre-rolled and ready to fire up anywhere in Cleveland? I’m tired of medicating my many eye-ball and stomache problems with this Mexican crap. Plus I don’t like keeping them violent fucks in business making TJ a city in decline. Why it used to be a great place until all them cartels started pushing all the hookers and donkeys around. You could just go on down from Daago, cross the border and maybe even stop by Disneyland before you crossed into the fine city of TJ…Drink to-kill-ya all night and sing Mexican songs till the sun rose. Now your kidnapped or dead as soon as you cross the border…and all because of harmless drugs..well other than the crystal meth which seems to be fucking things up along with coke. But a good fat-boy never hurt no body. Makes a prick, peaceful and a thug relax. If we switched the vodka over to hootch our crime in Cleveland would get close to zero. People would be laughing and dancing and not looking at each other like they were the fucking enemy. Legalize this stuff and change society for the better. Hell, pass it out for free at the republican convention and maybe even get those stiff pricks on board. We got some anger problems and some judgment problems in the USA. We got a bunch of tight-assed lawyers and MBA’s pull on all the strings and thinking about fucking money all the time. Hold them down and give them a good old fashioned shot-gun hit if they get uppiddy.
The solution is easy:
1) Find a non-airbrone way to take the medication (liquid or pill form). That way your friends and family won’t be sitting on top of you as you light up to take your medicine (2nd hand smoke). Otherwise your private time will disappear.
2) License growers to grow and sell only to certified labs that turn it into a pill or liquid form. License it like liquor establishments.
Problem solved.
Mr. Kenrmer: Why should a patient, growing their own medicine, have to resort to
There are plenty of ways to extract cannnabis/marijuana from the plant into a nonsmoke delivery system. It was distributed mostly as a tincture in the early part of the 20th century when it was the most widely prescribed medicine in the nation. In fact, I have personally seen a copy of the 1903 Parke Davis Pharmacoepia that lists most of the things patients today say it treats printed inside the book.
Second, Sativex, a product currently in FDA trials, is a whole plant based extract delivered via a sublingual spray that is patented by GW Pharmaceuticals that is another smokeless alternative that should be approved in the next year or two.
However, even more simply, you can take the plant, grind it up, saute it in some butter or coconut oil at a very low temperature (lowest setting on electric stove, gas probably will be too hot) for 8 hours, strain plant material out of oil, and you then have the medicinal qualities of cannabis in your oil which you can just eat by itself or add to recipes (brownies, fudge, pastas, etc.).
Thirdly, vaporizers work just fine. In fact, I would recommend this delivery system over eating the plant because the patient then has almost instant feedback as to whether they need more medicine or not. Unlike combustion/smoking, vaporization doesn’t create many if not all of the toxic/carcinogenic hydrocarbons that are normally created when you burn plant material. However, vaporization does create some Carbon monoxide, but not as much as combustion.
And while you may think everyone can swallow a medication in pill form, someone with nausea and vomiting who is enduring the horrific trauma of chemotherapy may not be able to swallow and keep down their medicine. And you may also want to know about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease, where the patient’s peripheral nervous system deteriorates and they usually die from choking to death (because the nerves that control swallowing lose their myellin sheathe and degenerate, much like the rest of their body) or asphyxiation. So please, let’s leave the best delivery method to patients up to health care providers.
Finally, considering the voluminous testing done to determine that cannabis had detrimental effects on babies of pregnant mothers when pregnant mothers consumed cannabis, and considering none of those tests showed in the end a negative effect on the babies when born, there is scant evidence that second hand smoke from cannabis in reasonable concentrations has much of an effect on people. However, the government research used to justify the statement that marijuana kills brain cells was a test in which they pumped cannabis smoke into a cage to the exclusion of oxygen, but we already knew that too little oxygen kills brain cells.
Mr. Kenrmer: There are plenty of ways to extract cannnabis/marijuana from the plant into a nonsmoke delivery system. It was distributed mostly as a tincture in the early part of the 20th century when it was the most widely prescribed medicine in the nation. In fact, I have personally seen a copy of the 1903 Parke Davis Pharmacoepia that lists most of the things patients today say it treats printed inside the book. Not only that, the Chinese have used it for thousands of years.
Second, Sativex, a product currently in FDA trials, is a whole plant based extract delivered via a sub-lingual spray that is patented by GW Pharmaceuticals that is another smokeless alternative that should be approved in the next year or two.
However, even more simply, you can take the plant, grind it up, saute it in some butter or coconut oil at a very low temperature (lowest setting on electric stove, gas probably will be too hot) for 8 hours, strain plant material out of oil, and you then have the medicinal qualities of cannabis in your oil which you can just eat by itself or add to recipes (brownies, fudge, pastas, etc.).
Thirdly, vaporizers work just fine. In fact, I would recommend this delivery system over eating the plant because the patient then has almost instant feedback as to whether they need more medicine or not. Unlike combustion/smoking, vaporization doesn’t create many if not all of the toxic/carcinogenic hydrocarbons that are normally created when you burn plant material. However, vaporization does create some Carbon monoxide, but not as much as combustion.
And while you may think everyone can swallow a medication in pill form, someone with nausea and vomiting who is enduring the horrific trauma of chemotherapy may not be able to swallow and keep down their medicine. And you may also want to know about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease, where the patient’s peripheral nervous system deteriorates and they usually die from choking to death (because the nerves that control swallowing lose their myellin sheathe and degenerate, much like the rest of their body) or asphyxiation. So please, let’s leave the best delivery method to patients up to health care providers.
Finally, considering the voluminous testing done to determine that cannabis had detrimental effects on babies of pregnant mothers when pregnant mothers consumed cannabis, and considering none of those tests showed in the end a negative effect on the babies when born, there is scant evidence that second hand smoke from cannabis in reasonable concentrations has much of an effect on people. However, the government research used to justify the statement that marijuana kills brain cells was a test in which they pumped cannabis smoke into a cage to the exclusion of oxygen, but we already knew that too little oxygen kills brain cells.
It’s time to consider legalization, this coming from a conservative corp goon too…Make some money and pay some bills so we can build back our infrastructure…Win win…
My names Jeremy I live in southeast ohio. I am alcholic and know the terrors of alchol. I’ve tried rehab centers and it didn’t work. I began using weed to cope with the cravings of alchol. I was alchol free for three years I got my life back. My job began randoms so I stopped using cannabis. My drinking came right back. I went back to using cannabis because I want to live. If I lose my job because I use cannabis so be it. I can find another one, but we only have one life and if cannabis saves it I don’t care about the consequences. I am a united steelworker and a standing member of my community now. Legalize it and it will save lives. I am living proof. It has so many good uses that people need educated about. Legalize
My name is Dan I am 18 years old my use of ganja comes from depression I have lost my real father when I was real little so I grew up with out a father but I had an awesome step dad who filled his shoes but he past away last year from a rare decease and weed helps me cope with my depression I also have a titanium plate and 8 screws in my left ankle which will have arthritis in it by the time I turn 20 . Please legalize it for the sake of every person who truely needs this wonderful herb that does wonders for every one who uses it
I live in southwest Ohio, and concider myself very concertive. But I also have herniated disc that cannot be operated on in my back and live in constant pain. I now go to a pain clinic and must use very strong and dangerous prescription drug to control the pain, and would be willing to try something that is much harder to overdose on like cannabis. The other issue I have is women have a right to their body in the sence they can dispose of a pregnancy the don’t want which some people consider murder but I don’t have the right to my body to put whatever substance in it I see necessary to give me a decent quality of life. Something just doesn’t seem right about that!
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