More Ohioans voted for abortion than for marijuana this Tuesday. Discourse about the election focused mainly on Issue 1, which enshrined the right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions” — or, stated honestly, to kill your unborn child. But Issue 2, which legalized recreational marijuana, received decidedly less attention on the national stage.
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Despite the lower political salience of Issue 2, the state’s new legalization regime won’t be the boon that 57 percent of voters anticipate. As the 24th state to legalize recreational weed, Ohio’s road forward is riddled with all-too-predictable potholes.
An earlier ballot proposal to legalize recreational cannabis in Ohio failed in 2015 with only 35 percent support from voters. The state legalized medical marijuana in 2016 under Gov. John Kasich, with the first legal medical dispensaries opening in 2019. This week, Issue 2 passed with 57 percent support, winning by a 14-point margin and making Ohio the fourth-most-populous state with a recreational market.
The Slippery Slope Toward Recreational Pot
Medical marijuana was a Trojan horse for full legalization in Ohio. In 2016, just after a push for recreational weed failed by 30 points, polls showed that 90 percent of Ohioans approved of medical marijuana — in large part because pro-legalization forces spun a compelling, if totally untrue, narrative.
Marijuana is not and cannot be medicine any more than bourbon can be. Sure, it might dull the occasional pain or temporarily relieve stress, but that’s hardly a standard for calling cannabis “medicine.” Most Americans don’t know that the FDA has repeatedly rejected marijuana as a legitimate form of treatment, not least because it’s impossible to ensure the purity and dosage of the active components in botanical cannabis.
The varied chemical compositions of different strains of cannabis — plus the plant’s sensitivity to breeding, conditions of cultivation, harvesting stage, processing method, and storage time — mean that it’s impossible for physicians to predict the potency or purity of any given marijuana product. Even though medical marijuana has been legalized in 38 states, doctors can’t actually prescribe it because it’s not an FDA-approved treatment. At most, they can recommend that patients try cannabis, leaving them to effectively self-medicate.
But the passage of Issue 2 ushers in a new era for Ohio. Now the charade of weed-as-medicine is over, and anyone can get their hands on the stuff.
What Comes Next?
Colorado was the state that pioneered legal pot, permitting recreational use starting in 2012. Now, a decade later, it’s clear that the drug has been nothing short of a disaster. Unfortunately, Ohio voters didn’t learn from the mistakes of other states. (RELATED: Schumer’s SAFER Banking Act Isn’t Safe at All)
Irresponsible drug use has burdened Colorado’s public services and proven the dangers involved with widely available cannabis. Marijuana-related calls to poison control have skyrocketed, with half of exposures involving children under the age of 5. Colorado’s health system now carries the burden of thousands of weed-related hospitalizations and emergency room visits each year, and traffic fatalities caused by marijuana-impaired drivers have more than doubled.
Additionally, a recent study by the Kansas City Federal Reserve found that social decline spiked in states that legalized recreational marijuana. Legal weed led to a 17 percent increase in substance use disorders, 13 percent increase in arrests, and 35 percent increase in chronic homelessness.
Legalization advocates promised that taxing legal sales would produce valuable revenue, but studies show that every dollar the Colorado government receives from the cannabis tax is offset by $4.50 in costs of traffic fatalities, hospital visits, and lost productivity. Ohio taxpayers have those additional costs to look forward to — but at least they can ease economic anxiety by lighting up!
Libertarians Get Marijuana Wrong
In addition to the burden on public services, increased danger to drivers, and financial strain prompted by recreational pot, Ohioans can look forward to the expansion of government power following legalization.
The reality of legalization is a far cry from the libertarian dream that legal weed effectively means the government can’t tell you what to do. In fact, the opposite is true. Ohio’s Issue 2 includes the establishment of a Division of Cannabis Control and an accompanying social-equity program that embeds progressive DEI principles into the budding cannabis market.
The framework of Ohio’s social-equity program remains to be seen, but Issue 2 specifies that the Department of Development will be required to “certify program applicants based on social and economic disadvantage,” which is defined as “membership in a racial or ethnic minority group, disability status, gender, or long-term residence in an area of high unemployment.”
When issuing cultivator and dispensary licenses, the state of Ohio must give preferential treatment to these equity applicants. If Ohio’s social-equity scheme looks anything like those in other states, taxpayers will be funding a novel large bureaucratic apparatus that implements DEI ideology at the expense of common sense.
Plenty of other states have legalized recreational weed and experienced its adverse social effects, but Ohio voters fell prey to the same tired slogans trotted out by marijuana advocates again and again. Weed won its popularity contest this week. The next few years will reveal what Ohioans actually voted for: drug-fueled decline into DEI dystopia.
Mary Frances Myler is a writer living in Washington, D.C. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022 with a degree in the Program of Liberal Studies.
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