Ohio Supreme Court Justice says it’s time to decriminalize marijuana, Justice O’Neill, a democrat holding an Ohio statewide office, said making marijuana legal is working in Colorado and doing it in Ohio would bring hundreds of millions of dollars in sales taxes. O’Neill also announced earlier this year that he’s considering stepping down and making a run for governor, but he doesn’t plan on making a decision until the end of the year.
According to U.S. News:
“The time has come for new thinking,” O’Neill said in his prepared remarks. “We regulate and tax alcohol and tobacco and imprison people for smoking grass.”
He said the Democratic Party needs new ideas in 2018 if it wants knock off Republicans who control all branches of Ohio government.
O’Neill wants to see the Ohio Department of Mental Health re-open the network of state hospitals that were closed decades ago and change how the state deals with addiction.
“Treat addiction like the disease it is in the name of compassion,” he said.
To give a little background, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed legislation into law establishing regulations for the licensed production and dispensing of medical cannabis formulations to qualified patients almost a year ago.
In a recent opinion piece Ashley Bunton of the Record Herald had this to say about this matter in Ohio, and we couldn’t agree with her more!
Now that the war on marijuana has failed epically, communities must collectively come together and move forward to assure a vibrant and positive future for Ohio. The people need to voice and lobby for the communities, not the state and a select few, to control the industry. The people can use this industry to heal and transform their issues on their own without the long-reaching arm of the government writing ridiculous parameters on marijuana into our state Constitution to monitor each person’s individual freedoms.
We are hopeful that Justice O’Neill will stay true to his word and, in the case that he does, we bet you can guess who we will be rooting for in the Gubernatorial race in Ohio!
