Legal pot isn’t coming to Ohio just yet. But a ballot issue that was meant to prevent marijuana legalization did pass yesterday, the so-called anti-monopoly issue. From Ohio Public Radio Station WYSO, Lewis Wallace has more on what's next.
Issue 2 makes it more difficult for voters to pass any measure that uses the state constitution to create a monopoly, oligopoly or cartel. State legislators put it on the ballot to try to undermine the marijuana effort.
Dudley Taft is one of the Cincinnati-based investors who advocated and paid for the marijuana campaign and opposed issue 2.
Dudley Taft: "Issue 2 is the most ham-handed amendment by any state legislature I’ve ever heard of. I think it’s undemocratic and unamerican and I think it’s dirty politics."
He and others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that it could make it even harder and more expensive for citizen-initiated amendments to pass.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted disagrees.
Jon Husted: "The Constitution is not there to grant people special rights."
He says issue two will just make it harder to use the state constitution to insure profits for a small group—like the casinos, which passed their own constitutional monopoly a few years back.
In the future, it will fall to the bipartisan Ohio Ballot Board to decide whether a proposed amendment does create a monopoly.