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Second Medical Marijuana Ballot Petition Gets the Ohio Ballot Board's Go-Ahead

photo of Don Wirtshafter
JO INGLES
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU

Just one day after the Ohio House announced it will pursue a bill allowing limited use of medical marijuana, yet another group got approval to start circulating petitions to put its issue on the fall ballot. 

Athens attorney Don Wirtshafter with Grassroots Ohio says he’s not sold on the medical marijuana plan Ohio House leaders say they want to pass.

“It’s a very timid first step. I believe our initiative is necessary because it will force the Legislature to look at this more realistically in view of the modern science on the subject.”

Grassroots Ohio’s proposed constitutional amendment would allow medical marijuana and hemp production but doesn’t set up any kind of regulations. Wirtshafter’s group will now need to collect more than 305,000 valid signatures in order to place the issue on the ballot. Two weeks ago, a national group got the go-ahead from the state to start gathering signatures for its proposal to legalize and regulate medical marijuana.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.