Marijuana laws already lax
Dave Yost, former prosecuting
attorney for Delaware County, is Ohio’s auditor of state.
You can have enough marijuana in your pocket to make 200 joints – and in Ohio, the police cannot arrest you for it. The most you can get is a ticket.
Surprised? In Ohio, all the rhetoric you’re hearing about people rotting in jail for possessing a little weed is just so much smoke.
Ohio was one of the states in the 1970s that decriminalized simple possession of marijuana. Possession of up to 100 grams – a little less than a quarter pound – is a minor misdemeanor, with a maximum fine of $150. (An average joint is about 0.5 grams.) At 100 grams – enough weed to stay stoned all day, every day for a month – Ohio leads the nation in the amount you can possess without fear of arrest. (I’m excepting the four states that have legalized marijuana for partying.) Put another way, possessing nearly a quarter pound of the drug is a less serious offense in Ohio than littering (Ohio Revised Code 3767.32).
In fairness, the ResponsibleOhio cartel may not be playing the jail card – but the urban legends are out there on the street among supporters. Rolling Stone magazine claimed that 750,000 people a year are arrested for marijuana.
Maybe so, but those people weren’t arrested in Ohio for possession, unless they had enough weed to set up a selling business.
Proponents claim that Issue 3 will end the illegal black market that drives criminal arrests – but legalization hasn’t ended the black market in Colorado. CNBC reported that 40 percent of the marijuana sold in Colorado is sold illegally.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says that Colorado is becoming a major marijuana exporter, competing with Mexico. Mexican drug lords are even importing Colorado marijuana to Mexico because it’s three times as potent as their domestic strains.
Colorado still has thousands of marijuana charges per year, though fewer than before full-on, party hearty legalization. This spring, 32 people were indicted in Colorado for their black market marijuana export grow – in a state where it has been legalized. Court documents reveal that the ringleader had declined an offer of merger from a legal producer because “I’m making too much money.”
The laws of economics aren’t going to change in Ohio if Issue 3 passes. Marijuana prices will still be very high, because the proposal sharply limits the number of growers and the amount of acreage in production. Add taxes, and there will be a strong financial incentive for a black market.
Legalization in Colorado hasn’t ended the black market or marijuana arrests, and Issue 3 in Ohio won’t, either. If you want to be for Issue 3, you’re going to need another reason.
You can have enough marijuana in your pocket to make 200 joints – and in Ohio, the police cannot arrest you for it. The most you can get is a ticket.
Surprised? In Ohio, all the rhetoric you’re hearing about people rotting in jail for possessing a little weed is just so much smoke.
Ohio was one of the states in the 1970s that decriminalized simple possession of marijuana. Possession of up to 100 grams – a little less than a quarter pound – is a minor misdemeanor, with a maximum fine of $150. (An average joint is about 0.5 grams.) At 100 grams – enough weed to stay stoned all day, every day for a month – Ohio leads the nation in the amount you can possess without fear of arrest. (I’m excepting the four states that have legalized marijuana for partying.) Put another way, possessing nearly a quarter pound of the drug is a less serious offense in Ohio than littering (Ohio Revised Code 3767.32).
In fairness, the ResponsibleOhio cartel may not be playing the jail card – but the urban legends are out there on the street among supporters. Rolling Stone magazine claimed that 750,000 people a year are arrested for marijuana.
Maybe so, but those people weren’t arrested in Ohio for possession, unless they had enough weed to set up a selling business.
Proponents claim that Issue 3 will end the illegal black market that drives criminal arrests – but legalization hasn’t ended the black market in Colorado. CNBC reported that 40 percent of the marijuana sold in Colorado is sold illegally.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says that Colorado is becoming a major marijuana exporter, competing with Mexico. Mexican drug lords are even importing Colorado marijuana to Mexico because it’s three times as potent as their domestic strains.
Colorado still has thousands of marijuana charges per year, though fewer than before full-on, party hearty legalization. This spring, 32 people were indicted in Colorado for their black market marijuana export grow – in a state where it has been legalized. Court documents reveal that the ringleader had declined an offer of merger from a legal producer because “I’m making too much money.”
The laws of economics aren’t going to change in Ohio if Issue 3 passes. Marijuana prices will still be very high, because the proposal sharply limits the number of growers and the amount of acreage in production. Add taxes, and there will be a strong financial incentive for a black market.
Legalization in Colorado hasn’t ended the black market or marijuana arrests, and Issue 3 in Ohio won’t, either. If you want to be for Issue 3, you’re going to need another reason.
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