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Voters are deciding on abortion and reproductive rights this fall.

But the second question on the ballot is big too.

Should recreational marijuana be legalized in Ohio?

Fact checking issue two With both campaigns this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of ohio.

I'm Karen councilor.

It's the final days of early voting in ohio.

The ballot includes local issues and races and two statewide questions.

Issue one is an amendment to guarantee abortion, access and reproductive rights in Ohio's Constitution.

Issue two is a law that would legalize, regulate and tax recreational marijuana for Ohioans over 21.

We'll get to issue two later.

But the campaigns for and against issue one are getting the most attention and money.

According to campaign finance filings last week, the group Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights has raised over $39 million this year.

Most contributions came from within Ohio, but the biggest dollar amounts came from national progressive groups such as the 1630 Fund, the Open Society Policy Center, the Fairness Project, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The opponents of Issue one protect women.

Ohio raised almost $27 million so far.

Again, most contributions were from Ohio, but the largest donations came from groups including Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, The Concord Fund, the Knights of Columbus, and the Catholic Dioceses of Ohio.

The Yes on one side spent $17.3 million on TV, cable and radio ads, while the No.

On one side spent $8.2 million.

Statehouse correspondent Joe Ingles runs down the last few heated days of this campaign before Beth and Kyle Long of Columbus went into the Franklin County Board of Elections to cast an early ballot.

They stopped to talk in the rain to reporters about why they weren't voting yes on issue one.

For Beth, this vote comes after having an abortion, after IVF, when the fetus she was carrying had a rare condition.

They couldn't survive and it threatened her own life.

Their story became an ad for issue one.

And I think.

I think it's important for us.

To make sure that nobody else has to go.

Through what we went through.

Also, taking advantage of early voting was Lieutenant Governor John Houston and his wife, Tina.

They voted against issue one.

And we just banked our vote.

We were early voters and we encourage you to do the same.

The numbers show many Ohioans are voting early as totals are surpassing where they were in the August special election.

Groups for and Against issues have been busy trying to turn out voters like these college students working with the Susan B Anthony Foundation.

They've been going door to door near Columbus trying to urge a no vote on issue one.

Republican Governor Mike DeWine has been trying to sway voters, too, by telling them if they vote no on the amendment, state leaders will revisit the restrictive six week abortion ban on hold by courts to include exceptions for rape and incest.

Vast, vast majority of people believe there should be those those exceptions.

So I think if this are defeated, then we can come back and find something that the majority of people in Ohio will will be able to feel comfortable with and be able to support.

The DeWine hasn't asked Attorney General Dave Yost to file anything with the Ohio Supreme Court to drop the state's appeal to put the six week ban back in place.

And Republican House Speaker Jason Stevens indicated his members would be willing to talk about changes to the ban after the election.

The former Ohio Democratic Party chair, David Pepper, calls DeWine's current suggestion a trick just like a promise he made to Dayton residents after the 2019 mass shooting, where he said he'd do something to rein in gun violence but later signed bills expanding gun rights.

Pepper says he thinks the race for issue one will be close.

I think the yes side has an advantage.

I think that's why you see some desperation from the governor or others how we're going to undo the thing we did, because I think they realize they're behind.

Signs for and against.

ISSUE one with different designs and different messages are spread throughout Ohio and in the days leading up to the election.

Both sides of Issue one are airing ads with information and sometimes misinformation.

This is the only weekend of early voting.

There's no voting Monday before Election Day on Tuesday.

Joe Ingles, Statehouse News Bureau.

Voters are also deciding issue to uninitiated statue that would legalize and regulate the growing manufacturing, testing and sale of recreational marijuana to Ohioans over 21 who could each have six plants per person and a dozen per residents.

It imposes a 10% excise tax on marijuana sales, along with state sales tax at five and three quarter percent, and local sales taxes up to two and a quarter percent.

The revenue, which has been estimated at $280 million to over $400 million a year would go to a social equity and jobs program, fund funding for communities that have dispensaries, addiction treatment and education and administration overhead.

Issue two would not directly affect Ohio's medical marijuana program, and it would be a law.

So it could be changed by lawmakers.

And the Republican leaders of the House and Senate have said it will be discussed if it passes.

Tom Herron speaks for the coalition to regulate marijuana like alcohol.

It brought the proposal to the legislature in January, and when lawmakers did not act, the group gathered nearly 125,000 valid signatures to put it before voters.

I asked Herron about some of the concerns raised about issue to the legislation establishes a THC limit of no less than 35% for plant material and no less than 90% for extracts.

And there's been some concern about those numbers.

Opponents have described that as extreme and dangerous.

So why are those limits set as they are?

Well, just to be clear, those are maximum amounts of THC and products, right?

That means.

It says no less than.

Yes.

So what that means is that when the Department of Commerce sets its maximum amount of THC content, that limit can't be lower than 35% for plant material, for instance.

And the idea there is to prevent monkey business and the promulgation of rules where there's a THC content limit of like 0.3% and then it's all just hemp products in the adult use market, right?

These are under Ohio's medical marijuana law.

The THC content limit is 35% for plant material.

So again, we're building off of the existing regulatory infrastructure and we wanted some agreement between the medical rules and the adult use rules to the extent that we could.

It would make sense for that.

So we looked at best practices from other states.

What content limits did other states set?

And that's ultimately where we arrived at the content limits under issue two.

So again, those are maximum amounts.

There will be a lot of products with much less THC being sold in an adult use market.

I would suspect that actually the majority of products would be far lower from a THC content limit.

So those are maximum amounts of THC.

But not less than 35% for plant material.

The maximum amount the department can't said a maximum amount of lower than 35%.

So you will have marijuana plant material, That's it.

11% THC or 5% or 15%.

I mean, it all depends on the unique strains.

One of the advantages of an adult use program is that it provides access to medical marijuana products that aren't available to a number of patients.

Like we talked about in the past, Karen, you're a veteran suffering from PTSD whose VA doctor can't issue a recommendation or you're a cancer patient treated by one of the major health systems that refused to allow their doctors to recommend medical marijuana for a lot of those patients.

They need products that have a little bit higher THC content, and we wanted to ensure that we provided meaningful access to those patients under issue, to.

The business groups that are opposed to this are concerned about worker productivity and safety.

They say employers will have to bear the cost of testing and possible liability, and they set out for a big hole in economic development plans and expansion because companies will go to other states where marijuana is not legal.

A study from July 2020 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, showed employees who tested positive for marijuana had 55% more industrial accidents.

85% more injuries, 75% greater absenteeism compared to those who tested negative.

So doesn't that show there is something to worry about when it comes to legalized recreational marijuana?

No, absolutely not.

And in fact, those those statistics can be very misleading.

Again, when you look at testing for marijuana, we know that marijuana stays in your system for days, if not weeks at a time.

So if somebody has an accident on Friday, but they consumed a cannabis edible on Monday and they test positive, nobody in their right mind says, you know what caused your accident on Friday?

It was the edible that you wait four days ago.

Right.

There was a study done just this past August, a longitudinal study meeting, a long term study conducted in Canada, where marijuana has been federally legal for several years now.

And that longitudinal study, the best study that we have of its kind, found that there is no difference in workplace injury risk for those workers who use marijuana outside of the workplace.

Right.

Nobody thinks it's a good idea to show up to work, just like nobody thinks it's a good idea to show up drunk to work.

But we do know from Canada, from the ten years that we've had regulated adult use markets in two dozen states, that there is no greater risk of workplace injury after a state that takes this step to regulate the sale of marijuana for adults.

And in fact, there's actually data to suggest that workers between the ages of 40 and 62 actually are more productive because they have other alternatives to manage chronic pain and they don't need to turn to prescription drugs or opiates.

You mentioned the money and the revenue that's generated.

One of the things that opponents said is that legalizing marijuana will have social and economic costs and taxes won't pay for that.

None of the revenue is going directly to law enforcement.

Why is that?

Well, look, there was recently a fairly conservative study conducted by Shoto Analytics right there in Columbus that again verified that issue two will have a net benefit to the entire state of Ohio to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

And as I mentioned, through that host community Cannabis fund, if a local community that has a dispensary needs more law enforcement officers or wants better equipment for law enforcement officers or more training for law enforcement, they'll have the funds to get that training, to pay for that equipment or to hire new officers.

And you talk about the social Equity and jobs fund.

And some folks, including state lawmakers, are concerned.

The legislation says a cannabis, social equity and jobs program shall provide financial assistance and license application support to individuals most directly and adversely impacted by the enforcement of marijuana related laws who are interested in starting or working in cannabis business entities.

Now, Senate President John Huffman said he wants to address that what he calls the convicted drug violence, who will be giving preferences for getting licenses.

Auditor Faber calls that the Drug Dealers and Families Fund.

Can you explain why 36% of the revenue is going into this fund and what it would do?

Yeah.

So the Social Equity Jobs Fund has a much broader application than what our opponents are telling Ohio voters.

This is another example of their attempts to mislead and scare voters in the last few days of this election because they can't rely on the facts.

I mean, under the social equity and jobs program, you know, that money goes in part to provide financial assistance to people who apply as a social equity applicant.

And by the way, there are a number of ways to qualify as a social equity applicant can be based on either social or economic disadvantage.

Right.

Including like long term residence in an area of high unemployment can be based on ethnic origin, gender, disability status, etc.. And then the Department of Development can establish those prior criminal interactions that might also qualify.

But nobody expects a felony drug trafficking charge to qualify somebody.

These are not qualified nations that are set by the Department of Development.

They're not set out issue two.

So the money that gets generated by the Social Equity and Jobs Fund in part goes to provide financial assistance, because, again, one of the ways you qualify is by not having money.

We want to ensure that the adult use cannabis industry in Ohio is representative, that it's easy to be a part of it so that we have lots of small businesses and entrepreneurs who are able to participate in the adult use market.

And so, yeah, there is a part of it that goes to helping with finances and technical assistance.

But as I mentioned, it also goes to study and fund these important criminal justice reform efforts as well as, as I mentioned, direct investment in disproportionately impacted communities to enhance education and entrepreneurism, legal aid, youth development and violence prevention.

I mean, so the Social Equity and Jobs Fund is about reinvesting and restoring communities throughout the state.

In been harmed by marijuana prohibition.

Issue two would not require expungement of criminal records of people convicted of marijuana related crimes.

Heron said the group did not address that in the proposal because of concerns it would be broken up into multiple issues requiring multiple rounds of signature gathering.

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Manufacturers Association, the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Children's Hospitals, law enforcement groups and the Ohio Republican Party are opposed to issue two.

I talked with Republican former state Representative Rick Kania, now with the Chamber, and Reverend John Coates, the president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Columbus and vicinity.

Reverend Coates, I want to ask you, there's already, as I mentioned, an illicit market for marijuana in Ohio.

Why not capitalize that and make it legal and tax it and potentially drive drug dealers out of business?

Well, there are several several problems.

First of all, we're not going to drive drug dealers out of business when recreational marijuana, if it's legalize youth, will not be able to go to dispensaries in order to buy marijuana.

Those drug dealers will now target a youth market.

We've just have redirected what redirect drug dealers to sell marijuana to our young people and that marijuana could be laced with God knows what, including fentanyl.

But that's another thing that this would do, is it would regulate marijuana and actually put some some guardrails on it, according to the supporters of issue two.

So it could potentially be safer.

Not illegal marijuana.

The safe the only safe marijuana would be the marijuana that would be sold in the stores and that strong to.

Let me ask you, Rick, there, you mentioned the numbers and the concerns about worker safety and productivity.

A study from Ohio State University's Drug Enforcement Policy Center in August of last year showed that recreational marijuana legalization appears to increase state employment growth.

There may have been virtually no impact on productivity and perhaps a small positive effect in their study.

And also the supporters of issue two have said that stat the stats that you just cited, which I cited to them before, can be misleading.

So does all this suggest that the fear of the loss of productivity really is maybe a little overblown here?

Well, Karen, look, we have a window of opportunity.

We have tens of thousands of jobs coming to the state of Ohio in the next 3 to 5 years.

They've already been announced for megaprojects alone.

And when you look at that, those types of jobs, by and large, they're going to be in manufacturing.

We're talking about precision work.

We're talking about construction, that thousands of construction jobs to even build the facilities.

We're talking about using heavy machinery like forklifts.

And so all of those are precarious situations where if somebody is under the influence of a substance that you've just made more readily available, it's going to lead to bad things.

Common sense tells us that.

The Social Equity and Jobs Fund, which is part of this, where the tax revenue is going to go, was designed to help people who are most directly and adversely impacted by marijuana related loss.

So, Reverend Coates, I want to ask you, many of those are people of color.

And so why can't you support a program that seeks to really help those people build back their lives?

Sounds nice.

It has a real, real nice wrapping on it.

But the reality is that this language, which would take revenue from marijuana and would employ convicted drug dealers and their families in order to get into the marijuana business.

Now, if you're going to spend money to give someone a job that might be disadvantage or are disabled in some way, why not allow them to train in the building?

Trades are some other industry that we are in need of within our state.

Why make them drug dealers?

What would you have less of a problem with this if indeed that revenue would go to something like a program for further education or something?

Absolutely.

But that's not what's within this.

This language in and the best thing to do is to is to vote no on this.

And let's go back to the drawing board.

Can I add to that?

Of course.

So, you know, when you look at the structure of how it's taxed and where the money is going to not a single penny of this is going to law enforcement.

And people on both sides of this issue agree we don't want people under the influence driving.

But there's nothing for enforcement in this.

There's money that there's a small amount of money that will go back to municipalities and townships.

Now, if that trickles down to if they even have a police force, great.

But nothing is going to the state highway patrol.

Nothing is going to the county sheriffs offices.

That's a really big problem.

We need money for law enforcement to be able to do their jobs to make sure that this is being done responsibly.

I've asked the supporters of issue two about that.

And specifically, they've said that this is funding that would be directed by the qualifications for the social equity program, will be directed by the Department of Development.

And indeed, the money could go to local communities to put toward law enforcement.

You've said before that it's not your job to fix this piece of legislation, but would you advocate to lawmakers that they make some changes in where that funding would go?

So the Ohio Chamber is doing two things currently.

One, we are we are taking a look and we are identifying what we perceive to be the flaws in this bill, why it's a bad idea to enable recreational marijuana.

The other thing that we're doing is we're trying to be constructive and we're trying to go through and make red lines and try to identify the flaws in the bill that should this pass, we can go to the legislature and work constructively with people on the other side of this issue to say, look, it makes sense to put these certain guardrails in this.

You know, we want this to be rolled out a responsible manner since the people have given their okay for it.

So we are planning to work constructively to identify and to relate what we perceive to be the policy flaws to the legislature in the event that they're willing to make those changes, make those fixes.

You've got people of faith and clergy members who are on both sides of issue one on issue two.

Reverend Koch, you and some other of your colleagues here in the Columbus area have come together against issue two.

Why weigh in on that issue?

Why do you feel strongly enough that you need to put your voice in on that?

Because we we pastor people, we minister to communities and we see the impact that drug drugs have on our community from day in and day out.

People have been smoking marijuana chronically for some time, and we know of the damage that it does.

It's a gateway drug and it leads into use of other of other drugs.

We see the effects of that on people's lives.

So with us, there's no question then to oppose this type of legislation that would encourage more, more drug use in our community.

But it can't be pointed out that there's plenty of damage that's done by legal substances like alcohol, like tobacco.

Why not oppose those and be concerned about what happens with.

Those mentioned alcohol?

And you're absolutely right, there's lots of damages that have been done.

The state has aggressively done have dealt with prescription doctors prescribing opioids, if I can say it, and and and and with other drugs.

But what about alcohol?

You know, you're not allowed to drink and drive in our state, but yet you can smoke and drive.

Well, the law doesn't change the issue to does not change the laws on driving under the influence.

Yes.

But how do you police it?

I mean, we can smell it, but can you?

There's no vaccine for THC, right?

You cannot measure like you do blood alcohol content.

You can't do that for marijuana, which is a big problem.

I want to ask you about that specifically on employers.

They can still have drug free workplaces.

They can still drug test their employees.

So why not allow this and allow, of course, employers to do as they say?

Well, and I will acknowledge they did take the employer protections that are currently in the medical marijuana statute, and they did kind of cut and paste them into this proposed statute.

We appreciate that.

We want to ensure that that workplace protections remain, that employers have discretion not only to test employees, but to enact Drug-Free workplaces and zero tolerance policies.

That's preserved.

We appreciate that.

But we think that there are other bigger flaws in this bill, including private property rights, which we haven't even talked about.

Not just about policing your own employees, but also policing the people coming into your premises.

Now, I would add that is that, you know, drug users, marijuana smokers are would be marijuana smokers need to be aware of that, is that employers will have discretion, which means that the law may say you can use recreational marijuana but don't test positive.

And there's going to be a big educational campaign needed for employers to understand if you don't have these policies in place, you better get crack and you better put them in there and you better be ready to enforce them.

Real quickly, property rights.

You mentioned that this doesn't affect if a if an employer if I'm sorry, if a landlord wants to say you can't smoke in here, they can still do that.

We think that the wording is is ambiguous.

I know that there's some mention of it in the statute, but we think it's ambiguous.

If you think about shopping malls, restaurants, amusement parks, any other private properties that are large, open public spaces, we would want to make sure that those private property owners have the discretion to completely ban cannabis use in cannabis possession on throughout the entire premises.

I don't know that it's absolutely crystal clear in the in the current legislation, and that's one of the things that we're going to want to talk to the legislature about much in the same way that right now you can put a placard on your front door to say you are not going to bring any firearms onto this private property.

That is something with all the expansive gun bills that have happened in the state, that is one considers that has remained for the business community.

We appreciate that.

We want to make sure that that same latitude is given with cannabis use and cannabis possession.

There are 19 states with legislation that legalizes recreational marijuana.

Again, this is the only weekend for early voting and it ends on Sunday.

Election Day is Tuesday, and that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse news Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State news dot org or find us online by searching the State of Ohio show.

Please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutual, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.ORG.