Ohio voters resoundingly rejected a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana on Tuesday. But that’s not deterring a similar campaign in Michigan.
Failure of the proposed constitutional amendment follows an expensive campaign, a legal fight over its ballot wording, and an investigation into the proposal's petition signatures.
The measure known as Issue 3 on Tuesday's ballot in Ohio would have allowed adults 21 and older to use, purchase or grow certain amounts of marijuana. The constitutional amendment would have established a regulatory and taxation scheme while creating a network of 10 growing facilities.
Those growing sites also were targeted in a separate ballot question aimed at preventing monopolies from being inserted into Ohio's constitution for the economic benefits of a few. That ballot question passed.
Jeffery Hank is the executive director of MI Legalize. His group is collecting signatures to put a marijuana legalization question on the November 2016 ballot.
He’s not worried by yesterday’s defeat in Ohio.
“We’re still another year out,” says Hank, who insists the plan his group is pushing is diametrically different from the one that failed in Ohio.
Hank says the Ohio ballot question failed because voters didn’t like that it would have given a small group of businessmen a pot-selling monopoly.
Polls have shown a majority of voters in Michigan support legalizing marijuana for recreational use. But polls showed the same support in Ohio.
Marijuana is legal for recreational use in four states (Colorado, Washington state, Alaska and Oregon) and Washington D.C.
