Legal weed: ‘More than simple up or down’

BUCYRUS — If the opinions of community leaders in Bucyrus and Crawford County are any indication, marijuana legalization — Issue 3 on Ohio’s Nov. 3 ballot — is likely to go down to defeat here.

Local officials working in law enforcement, the courts and in various drug recovery programs appear to be dead-set against the Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative, a constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational use in the state.

To a person, they also consider marijuana a gateway to harder, more addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

“I do feel that it is,” said Mary Jean Hensley, president of the Crawford County support group Together We Hurt, Together We Heal.

“It just depends on your chemical makeup. Some people don’t become dependent on things,” she said. “There are a lot of people who smoke pot and don’t get addicted because they don’t have that makeup. But if you’re someone who wants to find a better high, you’re sunk.”

Crawford County Common Pleas Judge Sean Leuthold was characteristically blunter.

“It’s a terrible idea. It doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s the height of irresponsibility. Marijuana is clearly a gateway drug for people on heroin and cocaine,” he said.

However, ResponsibleOhio, the organization behind Ohio’s legalization effort, can point to numerous studies showing that’s not the case, though most of the studies don’t come right out and say it.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse, for instance, acknowledges that adolescent rodents exposed to THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, can have enhanced responses to other drugs as well. But it goes on to say that alcohol and nicotine, both legal when used by adults, have the same effect.

‘Negative effect on the brain’

In a working paper published in July, the National Bureau of Economic Research contends that marijuana, when used to alleviate pain, can serve as a substitute for opioid painkillers, which are legal, considerably more addictive, and are documented as a potential gateway to heroin use.

“Prescription pills are a large part of opiate abuse. They’re legal, and yet they’re still being abused,” Bucyrus police Chief David Koepke said. But marijuana has a negative effect on the brain, as far as development is concerned. Every day, we have incident after incident, and it doesn’t do any good. People are making terrible decisions.”

Hensley draws attention to the elevated THC levels in today’s marijuana, a far cry from the 20 percent that was common in pot consumed in the 1970s and ’80s, which offered a mellow high.

“The THC levels today are just crazy — they’re as high as 80 percent,” Hensley said.

Margie Maddox, who runs the Alpha 12 Step drug recovery program in Bucyrus with her husband, John, concurs.

“The THC was never like it is now. Now they can’t even hold a job,” she said of users, adding that she now sees more instances of K2, a synthetic marijuana.

“We have people on that, and they’re aggressive, they’re mean,” she said.

“I know guys who started out smoking a little marijuana, and then they were smoking it every day,” said Crawford County Municipal Judge Shane Leuthold, who probably sees more marijuana cases than anyone else in the county. “It didn’t take long for them to get to the point where they didn’t want to do anything else. They didn’t want to go out and look for a job. They wanted to sit around and smoke marijuana.

“It really robs people of their ambition. I don’t think it should be legalized.”

Group pushing for legalization

Of course, it should come as no surprise that judges and police chiefs are opposed to marijuana legalization.

But even the folks at ResponsibleOhio admit that it’s easy for someone smoking pot and looking for a stronger high to find one without much trouble.

“What’s scary is a very real gateway that exists right now — dealers. Drug dealers have access to and are selling marijuana along with very dangerous drugs. And we can’t deny that these dealers are in our community and that they need to be stopped,” said Faith Oltman, a ResponsibleOhio spokeswoman.

“If we legalize marijuana, we will be able to devote the more than $100 million Ohio spends per year on enforcement of failed marijuana prohibition cracking down on real criminals and harder drugs.”

That’s where some local officials most vehemently disagree with the pro-legalization forces.

“Very few resources are used to prosecute marijuana cases,” said Crawford County Prosecutor Matthew Crall, who rarely sees such cases in his office. “Our jails and prisons are not clogged with people arrested for smoking marijuana. That’s a gross exaggeration.”

“It is not tying up the justice system. Marijuana possession is a misdemeanor, it’s a $150 fine,” Sean Leuthold said.

It takes possession of at least 200 grams of pot, far more than is typical for personal use, to reach felony status.

Late last month, officials with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office and other enforcement agencies confiscated 3,446 marijuana plants after aerial patrols across the county, a routine operation.

County Sheriff Scott Kent also is opposed to the legalization of pot and considers it a gateway drug.

“Since we have the jail here, we have a lot of time to talk to the inmates, and the heroin and opiate addicts all tell us they got started on marijuana,” he said.

The jail administrator, Kent Rachel, concurs.

“My personal opinion is I do not believe it’s a good thing,” he said of legalization. “It’s hard to find people who will work, and you can’t find someone who’s able to pass a drug test as it is now.”

Other public sentiment

An article in The Telegraph-Forum on August’s pot bust in the county generated more than five dozen comments, virtually all of them in favor of legalizing the drug, though some comments appeared to come from lobbyists for Issue 3.

“If pot was a gateway drug, then pretty much all of my friends and family would be serious heroin addicts by now. But that’s not the case,” Rob Ross wrote. “I just know way too many people who smoke pot, who lead highly productive lives and are great parents. I see absolutely no harm that they’ve brought on themselves or anyone around them.”

Even putting aside the gateway debate, local officials remain troubled by an assortment of other issues arising from legal weed.

“It will unemploy our police dogs. There will be no clear way to judge OVIs,” Bucyrus law director Rob Ratliff said. “There are just too many unanswered questions.”

Judge Sean Leuthold believes people who will be able to buy marijuana legally will sell it to people who can’t, keeping the issue in the courts. And Chief Koepke doesn’t expect his department to become any less busy should marijuana become legalized.

“There would still be law enforcement with marijuana, just as there is with alcohol. There’s a permit system there, and people are driving drunk. They’re also driving high on marijuana and opiates,” he said. “There’s a lot more to this than just a simple up or down.”

thill3@nncogannett.com

419-563-9225

Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ

Ballot text

The official ballot text of the Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative:

Issue 3

Grants a monopoly for the commercial production and sale of marijuana for recreational and medicinal purposes

Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Proposed by Initiative Petition

To add Section 12 of Article XV of the Constitution of the State of Ohio

A majority yes vote is necessary for the amendment to pass.

Other states

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia allow the medicinal use of marijuana — Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington.

Four states and the District of Columbia also allow the recreational use of marijuana — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington.