In Columbus, Ohio constitutional amendment was proposed to legalize recreational marijuana for adults with some restrictions: Six plants per household, including up to three that can be flowering.
Whats more, the growing area must be enclosed and locked. Growing cannot be conducted openly or publicly and, of course, nothing can be available for sale. All these restrictions are very common among other states where recreational cannabis is already legal.
The proposed amendment includes marijuana businesses currently licensed under the state’s medical cannabis program, as well as patients and other Ohioans. The coalition, backing this amendment, believed including home grow provisions was important.
Many of the backers are behind recreational because they believe the state impeded the implementation of the medical program before when it passed the law and created rules, beginning in 2016.
“We think it’s an important component in meaningful access. That’s really the driving force: Making sure people have the access they should have had four years ago.” said Tom Haren, a Cleveland attorney representing the backers.
Home grow is not a threat for the license holders who backing this amendment. According to Haren, they don’t view them as necessarily being in competition with one another, the same reason that brewing beer in your home doesn’t keep you from going to the grocery store to buy beer or getting a beer after work.
But, according to Thomas Rosenberger, associate director of the Ohio Medical Cannabis Cultivators Association, other licensed marijuana businesses that are not part of the recreational proposal may disagree with the home grow.
“I don’t know if it will amount to that much opposition. There will be licensees who would prefer to not see home grow, but I don’t know if they will spend millions to oppose it,” Thomas Rosenberger said.
Before the constitutional amendment can attempt to collect signatures for the November ballot, it will face many obstacles.
According to Chris Lindsey, government relations director for the Marijuana Policy Project, many states with medical or recreational programs allow people to grow their own cannabis.
In Michigan recreational marijuana was legalized in December. It is allowed to be grown 12 plants total per household.
Illinois recently began a recreational program too where home grow (up to five plants) is only allowed for it’s medical patients
Colorado at one point allowed people to grow up to 99 marijuana plants. “But it created a serious challenge because it was not difficult to get cover for an illicit operation. That dynamic was put to an end, they don’t do that anymore,” Chris Lindsey said.
