Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Panel Approves Medical Marijuana Ballot Issue

The Ohio Ballot Board has approved a proposed constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana and certain uses of hemp. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.

The state’s ballot board has unanimously given the go ahead to the group that wants to put medical marijuana on the ballot to start collecting signatures to do that.  The group must collect more than 385 thousand valid signatures from registered voters in at least half of Ohio’s counties in order to put the measure on the ballot in fall of 2014.  This ballot measure would, if passed, allow Ohioans with a doctor’s prescription to be able to smoke marijuana. It would also allows hemp to be grown as a crop with oversight by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.  There is a chance the issue could be put on the ballot this year but backers would have to collect all of the valid signatures before July 6th to make that happen.

Jim has been with WCBE since 1996. Before that he worked as a reporter at another Columbus radio station, and for three newspapers in Southwest Florida.