COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio voters will decide on Nov. 7 whether to legalize marijuana for recreational adult use, potentially taking Ohio down a road that nearly half of U.S. states already have paved.
The 41-page proposed initiated statute outlines in detail what an adult-use cannabis program would look like in the state, from a business and regulatory standpoint. If it passes, recreational marijuana would be legal for anyone age 21 and older.
But Issue 2 also contains lots of unknowns. While opponents have issued warnings about the potential fallout of providing easier access to marijuana, backers highlight the expected windfall from taxes that could fill government coffers and support new programs.
The debate raging in Ohio is similar to what happened in other states that have approved recreational marijuana. Weed has been legal in Colorado for more than a decade. California, the largest state in the union, legalized it in 2016. A wave of other states have legalized recreational marijuana in the last several years too, including fellow Midwestern states like Michigan and Illinois.
That 23 states already have approved marijuana for recreational use offers a trove of information to help understand what it could mean for Ohio.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer looked at data from nearby Michigan and Illinois; Colorado and Oregon, with among the oldest adult-use programs in the country; and California, the largest marijuana market in the U.S., to illuminate what the future might…
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