Blought #20: Responsible Ohio's Oligopoly

Yes on Issue #3 votes by county

Like Drake I’ll admit it, I’ll admit it . Young Langston enjoys smoking the herb. When legalization started to happen in various states around the country I was like “Hell Yeah! We have to be next up.” About a year or so later I heard about a proposition called Responsible Ohio. that would legalize weed in my home state. Sadly as more and more of the facts came out I found myself on the fence.

My pros were simple; legal weed, can’t get arrested for any amount under 10 grams and dispensaries which meant dabs and edibles. The con was all alone but it was a big one. A marijuana monopoly.

You can’t argue it. A group of investors who plan to control all of the production and distribution is a monopoly. Let’s look at John D. Rockefeller. Homeboy owned at one point 90% of the oil production in America during the latter part of the 19th century. His company Standard Oil Company had absorbed almost every one of it’s investors. After that he started buying up railroads to make it easier for him to transport his product.

Actually Issue 3 wasn’t a monopoly at all. It was an oligopoly. It’s the same as a monopoly but the wealth is distributed between a small number of people versus just one person. Experts say this was Responsible Ohio’s intent from the start.

A few other arguments citing race and class made their ways onto my social media feeds. I won’t refute them but I don’t support them either. Business and political insiders around the country realize the failing of Issue 3 had nothing to do with the idea of legalization but rather how we should legalize it. Not allowing a free market was for sure going to kill the bill. Not to mention if Issue 2 passed (which it did) Issue 3 would have been essentially killed had it been voted yes anyway.

Now the lobbyist group is threatening legal action. I don’t know what that would do since Issue 2 is on it’s way to becoming a law. It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next year. Will the lobbyists win in court, will we get legal weed how we want it or will we see a backroom deal happen behind our backs?

Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/04/6-reasons-ohio-marijuana-legalization-failed/

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2015/11/how_the_marijuana_vote_lost_ev.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/marijuana-legalization-initiative-fails-in-ohio-2015-11