December 7 is now Legal Weed Day in Ohio

A bright spot in a dark time

December 7th, once Pearl Harbor Day, is still a Day of Infamy for stick-in-the-mud conservatives, but a Day of Jubilee for the majority of Ohioans. Issue 2, the voter-initiated statute passed with an overwhelming 57% of the vote, became law.

That doesn’t mean every one of the new dispensaries that popped up over the last year will be selling recreational marijuana. The Ohio Legislature, with its infinite clownish, grasping wisdom, can still make some changes. The Senate wants to raise the tax from 10 to 15%, which is a help to Michigan’s dispensaries with their lower tax rate, and suck the money off into the general fund so they can keep lavishing wealth on the cops.

The House has come up with something closer to the voter initiative, which allocates a 10% tax, in part, to communities disproportionately affected by marijuana prohibition. IOW, majority Black communities, which happens to describe my own personal neighborhood.

What’s interesting, and important, is that there is no movement from the Republican-dominated legislature to repeal the statute, which they can theoretically do, but won’t because there’s simply too much money behind legal pot for them to turn up their collective, fuddy-duddy noses at.

Or maybe, just maybe, they actually have some rational sense of self-preservation after all. Anytime anything wins an election in America by more than 10% of the vote, that’s a freaking electoral landslide with real power behind it.

Meanwhile, possession of up to 2.5 ounces or 4 plants per person is legal.

So, if you live in Ohio or plan on visiting, light ‘em up if you’ve got ‘em. Ohio just became a little bit more free.