Batten down the hatches for the abortion and marijuana fight to come: Ted Diadiun – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

Awhile back, I pulled up in front of my favorite beverage store, and before I could enter, encountered a young woman holding out a clipboard.

Her presence there was not coincidental. She was gathering signatures for the euphemistically named “Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.”

In truth, the organization’s goal isn’t to “regulate” marijuana at all. What it wants to do is to get an initiative on the Nov. 7 ballot that, if passed, would spread the stuff all over the state, legalizing it for adults 21 and over – its cultivation, processing, sale, purchase, possession, home growth and use.

More specifically, it would authorize each Ohio adult to possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis and up to 15 grams of marijuana concentrates, and to grow six marijuana plants at home; or up to 12 plants per household.

I politely declined to sign, explaining to the woman that while I might get a buzz if I drank too much of the liquid I was about to buy, at least I would know who I was after drinking it, and wouldn’t think I was trapped in another dimension.

She laughed and said, yeah, she didn’t use weed either, but she was getting paid to collect as many signatures as she could.

Turns out she and the other petition-gatherers around the state didn’t get quite as many signatures as they needed by the July 20 deadline. Only 123,367 of the slightly more than 222,000…