>From today's Columbus Dispatch: *Buying the constitution * *Big money, not popular demand, is what drives the marijuana proposal*
*The haphazard signature-gathering effort by backers of a marijuana-legalization ballot issue suggests something other than a grass-roots clamor to bring legalized pot to Ohio.* *And the cities and townships where backers of the issue propose to set up their government-sanctioned-monopoly pot farms don’t seem exactly enthusiastic about that prospect.* *All in all, the lurching campaign effort shows ResponsibleOhio’s proposal for what it is: a bid to use the mechanics of state government — and, thereby, voters — to create an insider business opportunity for a handful of people. The campaign is driven not by popular demand, but by the big money of the investors who stand to profit.* *If a genuine grass-roots group of Ohioans wanted to see marijuana legalized for medical or recreational use, nothing would stop them from circulating petitions in support of that effort. But despite ResponsibleOhio’s complaint that lawmakers have been ignoring a burning desire for years, that supposed desire hasn’t inspired very many people to volunteer to pass petitions.* *To get the proposed amendment onto the November ballot, the group is paying people to circulate petitions. To be fair, few groups could muster the hundreds of thousands of valid signatures needed by using volunteers alone; many turn to paid circulators. And ResponsibleOhio’s paid circulators certainly aren’t the first to turn in lots of flawed signatures.* *But, a spot check at county boards of elections shows a remarkably shoddy effort by ResponsibleOhio’s circulators: As of Friday, major counties were finding more than half of the signatures invalid for one reason or another. At this rate, when the counting is done, the group won’t have the 305,591 valid signatures required to make the ballot, even though it collected more than double the number. (If that happens, Ohio law allows a 10-day “cure period” for petitioners to try to get the additional signatures needed.)* *In Franklin County, as of Tuesday, only 40 percent of 113,000 signatures counted so far were valid. About 26,000 people weren’t registered to vote at the address they listed on the petition; 23,000 weren’t registered at all. About 7,800 were duplicates and 2,600 were deemed “not genuine."* *Circulators with any commitment to the cause they’re pushing, beyond a per-signature payment, tend to try a lot harder to get valid signatures.* *The pushback from communities that stand to host the constitutionally protected pot farms is more evidence that ResponsibleOhio’s heavy-handed approach is unwise. If the proposal was simply to make marijuana cultivation legal, prospective growers might emerge naturally and work with local officials and residents to win them over.* *Instead, ResponsibleOhio’s investors secured rights to properties in 10 locations around the state and wrote a constitutional amendment that would give them exclusive rights and hamper local government’s ability to get in their way.* *It’s no wonder Ohioans — those who actually have kept up their voting registrations and are concerned about their communities — aren’t the ones driving this self-serving scheme.* What the editorial board of the Dispatch seem to not understand is a simple fact.... ....If you smoke a lot of dope, you tend to do shit half - assed! I refer you to a certain brother who liked to build shit in his room...but never seemed to finish! :-p -- Warren R. Baltimore II Remedy Developer 410-533-5367 _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years"
