Remember Issue 2? The one Ohio voters passed last November? The one that makes recreational marijuana legal in Ohio? Attorney Tom Haren joins the show to talk about when consumers can expect to be able to make their first dispensary purchase.
420
It’s about to get real for people who want to buy cannabis like they buy a bottle of bourbon.
The state law passed by voters requires the state to have applications for dispensaries ready by June 7.
The first dispensaries up are those already selling medical marijuana. There are 122 of them.
Because Issue 2 was a change in state law and not an amendment to the constitution, state lawmakers could change it. We all thought the largely marijuana-averse Republican legislature and the governor would do that, but they haven’t, and recreational sales could begin sooner than predicted.
Snollygoster of the week
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that death certificates filed with the Ohio Department of Health are not subject to public disclosure.
This case dates back to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when former Dispatch reporter Randy Ludlow tried to obtain cause of death information and the names and addresses of deceased individuals. The court ruled that disclosing names and addresses, along with other medical information, would violate the privacy of the deceased.
Randy Ludlow sought this information to understand how many people dying from COVID-19 were in nursing homes, and specifically which nursing homes. However, the state was unwilling to identify the exact nursing homes where the deaths occurred. As a result, the public did not know which nursing homes were more successful than others in controlling COVID-19. This information would have been beneficial to the public.
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