COMMUNITY CONVERSATION: Our panel answers your questions about Issue 2

You can watch a recording of the full Community Conversation on our website or the Dayton Daily News Facebook Page.

Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Could you explain what Issue 2 would do?

Tom Haren: Everything you need to know about Issue 2 is right in the name of our organization: The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. You have to be 21 to buy, have to be 21 to use it. We’re going to regulate the entire supply chain from seed to sale, just like we do in our medical marijuana program. And we’re going to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenue to the state of Ohio.

Sen. Huffman: I’m not totally on the opposite end. I believe we’re going to have recreational adult use somewhere in the next several years, I just don’t think this is the correct way to go about it. There are some flaws, big flaws, I think. It will limit the 90% on the extracts. But I think it does three things that really made medical marijuana viable, which was the no smoking, which will continue because it’s a constitutional amendment that there shall be no plant-based smoking in public. But also the work environment. We have a lot of federal contracts that require a drug-free workplace, and that includes marijuana in the chance of someone coming in intoxicated or high during work. And the other thing that really bothers me is the homegrown. People don’t know what they don’t know about the pesticides that they put on it. They’re actually smoking toxins. There’s also mold when you dry that out that can become toxic, so it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous for the children, and it’s a gateway drug that is going to lead to other things.

Desiree Tims: The reason I am supporting Issue 2, and I’m encouraging everyone in the Miami Valley to vote Yes on Issue 2 is, as a daughter of Dayton, I’ve seen so many people fall victim to the criminal legal system because of a small amount of possession. Their goals, their financial aid for going to college, their opportunity to get housing, their opportunity to access employment because of a failed drug test. And so for me, this is about a criminal justice matter. And then we also see that there’s an opportunity for tax revenue. We’re seeing neighboring states like Michigan bring in billions of dollars for recreational marijuana. And we can have nice things in Ohio, with some of that tax revenue really going back into a lot of the areas and communities in need. And finally, I think it’s very important for people to know this is an initiated statute, meaning that Senator Huffman and other members of the statehouse have an opportunity to amend or adjust the law. I think this is an opportunity to really see democracy at work, where we have the people voting, saying we want something, and then the legislature and the governor, they can make tweaks to it. I see this as an opportunity to see democracy in action and to allow everyday people to avoid these infractions that are often coated in racial bias when it comes to the criminal justice system.

What are the projected tax revenue impacts of Issue 2?

Douglas Berman: Our Center put together a report, thanks to our researchers, that looked at comparables from other states as they’ve legalized marijuana. Every state has done it with a somewhat different tax rate. My understanding of the proposal is that it’s built more or less on how Michigan did things. So we really look to the Michigan model there to try to assess based on population levels. And there’s lots of necessary estimates and assumptions that have to be made. But the simple story is, it’s going to be significant. We’ve seen in every state that has legalized marijuana significant sales through legalized stores. Over five years, once the program is fully rolled out, we expect it could be as much as an upper estimate of $400 million annually in tax revenue. The lower estimate is about $250 million. The Ohio General Assembly will have broad authority to tinker or maybe make very big changes to the initiative if it were passed and to become law. And I would expect that the tax rate or at least the way in which taxes are allocated might be one component of how that that plays out, in part, because it’s going to be a pretty significant amount of money. I will add the important point that $400 million seems like a very big number, but relative to the overall budget, and this is true in other states as well, it still ends up being no more than about 1% or 2% of the state’s overall revenue, budget and expenses. And so though there’s lots of zeros that can be generated by marijuana taxes in a legalized tax regime, it’s not going to magically solve every budget issue.

How would the tax revenue get distributed if Issue 2 passes?

Tom Haren: The 10% tax at the point of sale is in addition to any local sales taxes that there might be at the point of sale. So in Cuyahoga County, for instance, I think a consumer will end up paying 16-17% of tax on an adult-use product. That tax revenue goes to four buckets. First 3% of that revenue goes to the state to provide funding for the Department of Commerce to regulate the industry for enforcement, new agents, etc. 25% of that tax revenue goes to a substance abuse and addiction fund, that’s administered by the state. They can send that money down to local boards of health, etc., but it sort of starts right there at the state level. 36% goes to a host community cannabis fund, which is essentially a pool of money that goes directly to local governments that have adult-use dispensaries within their districts. They have complete discretion as to how to spend that money. Some localities might hire additional police officers, some might spend it on infrastructure, you know, filling potholes, repairing bridges, to build new parks, but it’s whatever those localities most need within their districts. And then the remaining 36% goes to a social equity and jobs fund that will be used to make direct investment in disproportionately impacted communities to study and fund criminal justice reform efforts, and also to provide some technical and financial assistance to applicants for social equity licenses or social equity jobs within the adult-use industry.

Dayton Children’s has come out staunchly against Issue 2. Why is that?

Dr. Gogi Kumar: We oppose Issue 2 because of the impact it has on children. It starts in utero. So when a mother is pregnant and marijuana in some form crosses the placenta, it affects the fetus. And there have been very strong animal studies that show that the THC component of the marijuana products actually bind with the fetal brain and can affect the development of that brain and affect how synapses are formed in utero. Human studies have shown that children who were exposed to in utero marijuana later on develop problems with concentration and memory and have impulse control issues. So the American College of OB GYN has strongly recommended not using marijuana during pregnancy. And we have seen a huge increase in accidental ingestion for children and young children, which is characterized as zero to six years of age. And we I have personally experienced kids coming into the ER, who are sort of like in a coma or they are not waking up, and there’s a multimillion dollar workup done on them, including CT scan, spinal taps, thinking there’s some meningitis, because we don’t often get the history of marijuana exposure because parents are not aware of the fact that their smoking might be affecting the kid. There’s a societal perception that marijuana is a natural product and it’s not going to harm kids. 75% of these patients are admitted to the hospital. 14% of them go to the ICU, in our in our own Dayton Children’s Hospital. The most interesting thing that we found in our study was that 85% of these patients were Medicaid patients, they were they belong to a poor socioeconomic status. 65% of these families were on public assistance. So these are the more vulnerable parts of society who are exposed to this type of detrimental effects of marijuana.

Tom Haren: One thing everybody here agrees on is that kids should not use marijuana outside the care of a physician. And the question really is, what’s the best way to ensure that we’re keeping marijuana out of the hands of kids. We know that drug dealers don’t check for IDs, they’re happy to set up shop right next to a school and sell to anybody they want to, they’re happy to design products that look like candies. That doesn’t happen in a regulated adult-use program. In a regulated dispensary, you have to be 21 to make the purchase. All of the products, the packaging is all childproof, tamper-evident, the packaging is all pre-approved by regulators before it ever hits a dispensary shelf. It’s tested, once, sometimes more than once, by state licensed testing labs, before it ever hits a shelf. The products are labeled so that consumers know the exact potency, they know which pesticides, if any, were used in the production. They know everything they can know about the product and you won’t get that in the illicit market.

Desiree Tims: Some of the arguments that were we’ve heard more recently are the same arguments we heard during the debate around medical marijuana. So I don’t want to re-litigate that point, and I am 100% sure that everyone here doesn’t want children using any drugs, tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, you name it. We heard the same thing with Tide pods and children ingesting laundry detergent. So I think keeping children safe is a priority every day, regardless of the product. And no, I think everyone would agree that expectant mothers should not smoke or do any drug. We we’ve had the data on tobacco for decades now. What Issue 2 is going to do is ensure that we’re moving drugs off the streets and out of our neighborhoods. And we are going to regulate it the same way we regulate cigarettes, the same way we regulate alcohol and beer. Even Senator Huffman started this off by saying recreational marijuana will reach Ohio at some point. And so let’s get it right the first time. And this is our opportunity to really get this right. And again, it is an initiated statute. We will have an opportunity through the state legislature to ensure that the appropriate guardrails are in place to ensure that this isn’t leading to more problems in our community. I see this as an opportunity to help get drugs off the streets, help better educate the public, bring in tax revenue, and ensure we are removing Black men and Brown men from entering and engaging in the criminal legal system over and over again for a very small amount of marijuana.

How would Issue 2 interact with the existing medical medical marijuana program in Ohio?

Sen. Huffman: I don’t know if we’ll all agree with this, but I think we should. The reason we’re here, and the reason we’re here with medical marijuana, is the absolute failure of the federal government to move it from a schedule one drug to a schedule two, so that places like Wright State, Ohio State, can do academic research to tell us if it does have any positive properties for medical or other use. So to me, it’s the failure of the federal government. But I think the medical marijuana industry will be decimated with Issue 2. Why would you go to a doctor every two years and get a recommendation for $100 and then go fill out a medical marijuana card, when you could just walk in the door and get whatever you want? So the industry from that point will kind of go away. There will still be the level one and two growers that is going to be regulated, they’ll still be there in some capacity. But the patients will just go away. And the other thing which will really do harm is the home-grown. Is it going to be in a childproof container? I don’t know what parent is going to grow six plants that are 12 feet tall who will then keep their product in a childproof container. You’re gonna grow that in the backyard and or someplace in your house. The neighbor kids are going tp come over and pinch them off. The other neighbors are going to take some. So I think a lot of the medical marijuana industry is going to just kind of fade away because of home-grown and other viable products.

Tom Haren: Again, it gets back to regulating marijuana much in the same way that we regulate alcohol. You can brew your own beer at home, you can make your own wine at home. And from our perspective, cannabis consumers should be able to grow their own plants at home provided they do it in compliance with Issue 2, which requires that any homegrown cannabis be grown in a locked enclosed area that’s not accessible to children. So we do have guardrails in place. But from a from an overall standpoint, I think what you’ll find is that the vast majority of cannabis consumers are not growing their own cannabis. It’s really hard to do. It takes a long time. And when you have products that can be available at your neighborhood dispensary for a fraction of the cost of what it would take to grow your own, I think what you see in just about every other state, is that home grow or home cultivation of marijuana is really not a concern, because so few people ultimately end up doing that.

Is there any other research or comparative analysis to other states and other programs that could help inform voters?

Douglas Berman: I think there’s one fundamental part that’s been discussed already which is marijuana is already in our communities. And so it’s not as though legalization all of a sudden floods the community with with cannabis. It just changes the means and mechanisms and to some degree, the social and economic context in which people access cannabis. Prohibition has the kind of convenience of seeming easy, right? Well, it’s just illegal. And then we close our eyes to it. And we hope that it doesn’t affect our community. When in fact it does behind closed doors. Criminalization, particularly, has always had an unequal application in different communities based on class differences, based on a variety of others that impact the way our criminal justice system functions. If there was a simple answer to a lot of these issues, another state would have figured it out. I particularly appreciate Senator Huffman rightly blaming the federal government for failing to be a leader in this space, at least a leader in research. There’s a famous study that was done back in the 70s that basically said we shouldn’t criminalize cannabis, because the harms of criminalization are greater than the harms of cannabis. And yet that was ignored. This was put on schedule one, literally 10′s of millions of people got arrested, had their life course impacted by criminalization. And we just don’t know how to trade off those costs and balances effectively.