COLUMBUS, Ohio — Supporters submitted hundreds of thousands of signatures to let Ohioans choose if recreational marijuana should be legal, but with how easy it is to have petitions thrown away for little mistakes, advocates now have to wait two weeks to see if they make it on the November ballot.
The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol dropped off more than 222,000 signatures Wednesday to the Ohio Secretary of State's office.
Spokesperson Tom Haren wants voters to choose if Ohio should pass a new law regarding marijuana.
"We're very confident that we're going to pass the ballot in November," Haren said.
It would legalize and regulate recreational cannabis for adults 21 years of age and older. Individual Ohioans would also be able to grow up to six plants, but up to 12 per household.
This proposal would also impose a 10% tax at the point of sale for each transaction, which activists say would raise $350 to $400 million in new tax revenue annually.
"That tax is also low enough that Ohio operators will be able to effectively compete with the illicit market," the spokesperson added.
Gary Wolske, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio and a retired Garfield Heights lieutenant, was astonished by this argument.
"Hopefully it puts drug dealers out of business, and everybody goes about happy and only smokes marijuana at home and doesn't drive anywhere after they do it, and they don't leave their gummies and brownies out for the kids to get," Wolske said, sarcastically. "And unicorns will be back next week too."
The marijuana battle has been a long one, one that Wolske has been fighting against for years.
"We've done so many crazy things to protect society — now we're going to put another problem out there?" the law enforcement officer asked. "It just doesn't seem like it's a good mix for folks."
Some law experts warn marijuana enthusiasts may run into more issues than just opponents.
Case Western Reserve University constitutional law professor Jonathan Entin explained that signatures can be discounted for a variety of reasons, including if the signer isn't already a registered voter or if they sign a form that doesn't have their specific county on it. This is why it's important to get an overabundance.
In this case, supporters turned in about 100,000 more signatures than needed.
"Just as a general proposition, if you have a 50 or 75% cushion — that's probably a decent number to have," Entin said. "But, to some extent, that's going to depend on how careful the petition circulators were when they talked with folks who signed."
There were some clear differences between the abortion amendment campaign and the marijuana campaign.
Comparing to the abortion amendment
The marijuana-initiated statute was submitted on the same day as the petition for the abortion constitutional amendment. Because it seeks to amend the state constitution and not just enact a new law, the abortion petition needed significantly more signatures.
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights held a robust 12-week campaign where organizers were constantly posting on social media, reaching out to the news, holding information sessions and explaining to Ohioans when and where they could sign up. They had tables at events, made phone calls and went into neighborhoods to collect signatures.
RELATED: Reproductive rights group delivers over 700,000 petition signatures to Secretary of State
"The reproductive freedom amendment, that needed over 400,000 signatures — they came in with somewhat over 700,000," Entin said. "If you just look at the proportions, the marijuana petition has a bigger percentage cushion than the reproductive freedom proposal has."
The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol had an 8-week campaign with little to no official social media presence. Their website was also left relatively empty. After a News 5 story on May 8, viewers reached out continuously trying to figure out where to sign on. News 5 tried to get answers but was never responded to by the campaign.
Viewers reached out to share that they see abortion rights activists all around the state. Also, viewers reported seeing campaigners for and against Issue 1, which will be on the August special election.
Evidently, the coalition was able to get double the signatures they needed without the use of social media or ads, but this raised some questions for people in support and against the marijuana ballot.
"I didn't see these folks anywhere," Wolske said. "I can't believe in Northeast Ohio — an urban area — that you wouldn't see that."
Two separate viewers reached out to News 5 to explain that they saw marijuana canvassers outside, but the petitioners didn't explain to them what the petition was for, nor did they check the county or residence.
Haren’s team tried to submit signatures for the marijuana proposal in 2021. That year, the team announced they sent in 207,000 signatures. It was later found only 120,000 were valid, according to state officials. This put them below the threshold, and that attempt failed.
Despite all of this, Entin thinks both will make the ballot.
"With this amount of cushion, I'm not sure that the care that the circulators took will necessarily determine whether there actually are enough valid signatures on either of those petitions."
Haren said that they have been out and about, clearly, getting what they need.
"We have been internally validating as we've been going through this process," Haren said. "We're confident that we're going to have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot this November."
Signatures must be verified by July 20. If either of the campaigns falls short, they will have 10 days to make up the amount missing.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
