The League of Women Voters of Athens County held a voter forum Tuesday night to announce its position on each statewide ballot issue.
Cliff Barrown of Athens County has been working to legalize marijuana for more than 30 years, but he won’t be voting yes on Issue 3.
Barrown, along with 40 other residents, met with the League of Women Voters of Athens County at the Athens Public Library on Tuesday night to hear and discuss the league’s positions on the upcoming issues to be voted on in November.
“Well, I got started back in the early '80s,” Barrown said after the meeting. “This thing (the effort to legalize marijuana) has been going on a long time and (Issue 3) is not what anybody wants, unfortunately.”
Barrown and others at the meeting who are against Issue 3 proposed legislation to legalize marijuana in Ohio.
Mary Costello, a co-president of the League of Women Voters of Athens County, elaborated on the league’s stance.
“The league has no position on marijuana, but they do oppose using the constitution trivially,” Costello said.
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Ann Henkener, former board member of the League of Women Voters Ohio, was in town and led the forum as the event’s guest speaker.
Henkener said limiting growing facilities to the 10 outlined in the proposed legislation are “things that really shouldn’t be” in the Ohio constitution, equating the proposed marijuana growing and regulatory infrastructure to a monopoly.
“The Ohio Constitution should be a general document of guiding principles, not something that lays out the addresses of where all the (facilities) are going to be,” Henkener said.
Henkener also discussed the relation between Issue 3 and Issue 2, proposed anti-monopoly legislation, using the example of how casinos became legal in Ohio in November 2009.
Similarly to Issue 3, the addresses of all the original casinos in the state were outlined in the amendment approving casinos into the Ohio Constitution, she said.
“That (casino approval) was a big wake-up call for the legislature,” Henkener said.
Henkener said the legislators saw the same issues with the casino approval in the proposed marijuana legislation.
“(The legislature) saw that and they went, ... ‘We don’t like this idea of people coming in, financing a campaign and their pay-off being they own one of the four casino sites or one of the 10 sites that (are) permitted to grow marijuana,’ ” she said.
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Because of those reasons, Henkener said the league suggested people vote "yes" on Issue 2.
However, with Issue 2 there is change to the process voter-initiated legislation goes through, she said.
“It does not take away the rights of citizens to (initiate legislation) because you can do it with a two-step process, instead of a one-step process,” Henkener said. “And you’re keeping a lot of things out of the Ohio Constitution that really shouldn’t be there.”
If Issue 2 passes, Henkener said with all future voter-initiated legislation that “grants a monopoly, determines a tax rate or grants commercial licenses unavailable on equal footing.” A vote "yes" must be required to override Ohio’s anti-monopoly policy as well as a "yes" on the voter-initiated legislation.
Another complication between the two issues arises if both pass, Henkener said.
“If both (Issues) 2 and 3 have ‘yes’ votes, it’ll have a 100 percent chance of going to the courts,” Henkener said.
The other statewide ballot measure is Issue 1, a measure that would create a bipartisan redistricting commission to prevent gerrymandering, Henkener said.
Organizations sharing the league’s position of voting "yes" on Issue 1 include both the Ohio Democratic Party and the Ohio Republican Party, Henkener said.
“The reason we’re so optimistic this time is there is such broad support,” she said.
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