Make marijuana law work

Toledoans’ vote to decriminalize marijuana has implications for voter turnout, campaigning, and public policy

Issue 1 supporters convene on election night to hear vote results.

Toledo voters’ decision to decriminalize marijuana in the city, reducing penalties for the drug to the minimum allowed by state law and repealing penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana, drove voter turnout in this week’s municipal primary to 9 percent. That may not sound like a lot, but it doubled the turnout from the comparable election four years ago. City and state officials should pay attention.
The marijuana measure drew votes from more than 11,000 Toledoans, compared with 4,700 who voted against the proposal. More residents voted for the measure than voted for all City Council candidates on the primary ballot combined.

The plan to decriminalize marijuana, called the Sensible Marihuana Ordinance to reflect the antiquated spelling in the municipal code, drew support from Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson and most other mayoral candidates. City officials now say some parts of the new ordinance may be unenforceable because they conflict with state law.

Whatever the complications of the provision, though, its broad implications are clear. The proposal will, properly, abolish Toledo’s penalties for largely victimless crimes, such as possessing and selling marijuana paraphernalia and using small amounts of the drug. It will help spare nonviolent offenders needless fines, jail time, and criminal records that can keep them out of the work force and subject them to a cycle of crime and imprisonment.

Nearly half of Americans say they have tried marijuana, according to the Pew Research Center. If national polls are any indicator, most Americans and Ohioans favor reducing or ending criminal penalties for marijuana use. Some states have done so, recognizing that criminalizing the drug does little to make communities stronger and instead has decimated poor families, particularly in African-American communities.

Toledo’s vote creates a strong precedent for Ohioans to dismantle further the state’s marijuana penalties; although they already are among the most lenient in the nation, they are still tough enough to cause the arrests of tens of thousands of people for possessing the drug each year. Ohio voters will get that opportunity with a proposal on the statewide ballot in November.

 Whether that initiative also would give a select group of marijuana growers an unacceptable advantage in the drug’s production is, or should be, a question for Ohioans to decide. Secretary of State Jon Husted has sought to tilt the campaign debate by including nonneutral descriptors such as “monopoly” in the language voters will consider. State officials should seek to embrace, not suppress, Ohioans’ desire to assert their own policy preferences through the political process.

More important at the moment, and worthy of celebration, is the level of civic participation that Sensible Toledo, the group behind the local marijuana decriminalization campaign, has activated to draw voters to the polls. On national political issues such as a living wage, racial justice, and now this one, grass-roots organizing has engaged ordinary citizens and forced once unheard-of ideas into the political arena.
When politics is about issues, not feuds or personalities, all citizens gain.