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Attorney General Mike DeWine
DeWine Rejects
Petition for Cannabis Control Amendment
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today rejected the
petition for the proposed Cannabis Control Amendment because the
summary of the petition was not “fair and truthful.”
On May 11th, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received a written
petition to amend the Ohio Constitution by adding the Cannabis Control
Amendment. Attorney General DeWine’s letter rejected the summary for
several reasons, including, but not limited to:
The summary has numerous inconsistencies with the amendment language
regarding restrictions on minors.
The summary states certain local authorities can ban commercial
distribution of marijuana and related items "in whole or in part," but
the amendment has contains no provisions allowing for a partial ban.
The summary repeatedly uses the phrase "marijuana concentrates" in
places where that phrase does not appear in the amendment.
“Accordingly, I am unable to certify the summary as a fair and truthful
statement of the proposed amendment,” DeWine stated in his letter
rejecting the petition. “However, I must caution that this is not
intended to be an exhaustive list of all defects in the submitted
summary.”
In order for a constitutional amendment to proceed, an initial petition
containing summary language of the amendment and 1,000 signatures from
Ohio registered voters must be submitted to the Ohio Attorney General.
Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the
Ohio Ballot Board would determine if the amendment contains a single
issue or multiple issues. The petitioners must then collect signatures
for each issue from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88
counties, equal to 5 percent of the total vote cast in the county for
the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Total
signatures collected statewide must also equal 10 percent of the total
vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election.
The full text of today’s letter and of the initiative petitions
submitted can be found at
www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/BallotInitiatives.
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