Recreational marijuana backers start fall ballot campaign – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

Recreational marijuana backers start a campaign to bring a proposal to Ohio’s fall ballot

By: Jo Ingles | Statehouse News Bureau

Posted on:
Sunday, May 7, 2023

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — A proposed law to legalize marijuana and regulate it like alcohol in Ohio could be on the ballot this fall. State legislators declined an opportunity to pass that law and backers of recreational cannabis now move into the second phase of the initiated statute process.

State lawmakers had four months to act on a proposed law to allow for Ohioans over 21 to buy and use recreational marijuana. That deadline went by on Thursday.

So Tom Haren of the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol says it’s hiring paid petition circulators to gather 124,046 signatures by July 5 to make this November’s ballot.

“We’d hoped that the legislature would have engaged with us on this topic, but we suspected that they might not,” said Haren. “So we’ve been ready to start our signature gathering process, and I am supremely confident we will be able to make the July 5 deadline.”

This is a proposed law and not a constitutional amendment.

Laws, even those passed by voters, can be changed or repealed by…