Medical marijuana is legal in Ohio: Now what?
By Jimmy Miller, Samantha Ickes, Jacob Derwin
Qualifying ailments for the use of medical marijuana in Ohio
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome: more commonly referred to as AIDS/HIV. This disease causes severe damage to the immune system.
Cancer: a group of diseases with abnormal cell growth with potential to invade or spread to other areas in the body.
Crohn’s disease: a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract. Crohn’s typically affects the end of the small bowel and the beginning of the colon.
Trevor Skinner
Fibromyalgia: a disorder that includes widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep, memory loss and mood swings.
Multiple sclerosis: an often-disabling disease of the central nervous system that usually disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body.
Post-traumatic stress disorder : also known as PTSD. This is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or seeing a terrifying event.
Hannah Good
Tourette’s syndrome: a type of Tic Disorder, which includes involuntary and repetitive movements and vocalizations.
Ulcerative colitis: a chronic bowel disease that causes inflammation in the digestive tract.
For the full list of ailments, check out the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program’s FAQ
Doctors diagnosed Hannah Good with PTSD last year. Good, a Kent State senior political science major, suffers from panic attacks and sleepless nights but believes medical marijuana could ease her pain.
“Part of having [PTSD] is having flashbacks, a lot of it is having night terrors,” Good said. “The use of marijuana helps numb the sharpness, numbs the jarring.”
In June, Ohio joined 24 other states to legalize medical marijuana when Gov. John Kasich signed House Bill 523, a plan legislators passed a month prior. In September, the law took effect, but Good and other potential patients across Ohio will still have to wait to use medical marijuana.
Potential patients can’t legally buy marijuana in Ohio for another year because there are no dispensaries or growers. Cities can also decide to prohibit dispensaries within their own boundaries, or, as some Ohio cities have already opted to do, they can operate under a six-month moratorium. These city officials haven’t necessarily prohibited dispensaries, but want to see how the rest of the state operates with them before making a decision.
Right now, the only way for somebody to get medical marijuana is to travel to another state, but that process requires special recommendations that other states may not be able to accommodate.
Legislators like Sen. Dave Burke, Sen. Kenny Yuko and Rep. Steve Huffman pushed for HB 523 and spearheaded the creation of the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program, an advisory committee tasked with fleshing out concrete guidelines and regulations. By next September, this board is supposed to have much of the rules on dispensaries, processing, testing and cultivation figured out.
“It’s still in a limbo as we establish how things will work,” said Scott Partika, a legislative aide for Burke. “We gave [the committee] a very aggressive timeline to do so. We’re looking for them to produce some results over the next year.”
Ohio’s push for legalizing medical marijuana started years ago, and its actual implementation may take years to come.
How Ohio passed marijuana
House Bill 523 was not the first time legislators faced the question of legalizing marijuana.
Yuko first recommended medical marijuana in 2005, but said legislators immediately shot the idea down. In 2007, he introduced a bill to legalize medical marijuana but was told Ohio wasn’t ready for its implementation.
Initially, Yuko had to do more research: He hadn’t even contemplated medical marijuana, which he said meant neither did his fellow constituents.
“I did some research to find out what was going on with marijuana and the cannabis plant,” Yuko said. “I never heard of the two words put together, medical and marijuana.”
In January, Yuko took his ideas to the field, hosting forums at venues like universities, including Kent State. Yuko said he found support for medical marijuana but hesitation for recreational marijuana. The state’s reluctance to legalize recreational marijuana was reflected in last November’s election, as Ohioans voted “no” to Issue 3—a bill that would have legalized recreational marijuana—with 64 percent of the vote.
When Huffman first considered sponsoring HB 523, he recognized the state’s reluctance to approve recreational marijuana use. Previous legislation paired medical and recreational use together, but Huffman wanted to separate the issues. Of the 25 states that have legalized medical marijuana, only four can use it recreationally.
Huffman joined Yuko and Burke during their forums in January, gaining insight on what people wanted. The consensus was clear: Recreational marijuana, at least right now, is unwanted in Ohio.
“This time was the right time because [we wanted] to keep recreational marijuana out of the state of Ohio,” Huffman said.
Huffman, the sole sponsor of the bill, said states like California have “pseudo-recreational” medical marijuana programs, which legislators hoped to avoid with Ohio’s policies. In other states, nurse practitioners or a physician assistants can approve medical marijuana use, but only physicians with “ongoing medical” relationships with their patients can prescribe.
The delay
By September 2017, the medical marijuana board must determine laws on regulation, dispensary and prescriptions.
Until then, patients who wish to use medical marijuana must get special approval from their doctors in Ohio and travel to states who’ve also legalized medical marijuana. Pennsylvania is in a similar situation as Ohio, as medical marijuana is legal but dispensaries won’t be up for at least two years. The next-closest option is Michigan, but the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports it’s unclear if dispensaries there would sell to Ohio patients without a specific patient registry identification card. The required ID cards in Ohio are still unavailable and may not be around until September 2017.
Currently, doctors can write a patient an “affirmative defense,” which restricts potential patients from being prosecuted for possessing certain types of marijuana, including patches, edibles and portions of the plant. Smoking marijuana is not permissible under the defense.
To obtain an affirmative defense, a physician must write a citation saying the patient has been diagnosed with a condition that can be treated with medical marijuana. The same physician must also go over risks and benefits of medical marijuana with his or her patient and write that the pros outweigh the cons for the patient. The defense will expire 60 days after ID cards become available.
Yuko said he wished there was no delay — he believes a speedier process is necessary for potential patients.
“These are lives being lost. These are families being devastated,” Yuko said. “We have so much to accomplish and no time to wait.”
Huffman, on the other hand, defended the wait time. He wants Ohio to get things right.
“This will give the commission time to sit down and look at experts and decide what’s best and change things and things go,” Huffman said.
Good, the KSU student seeking to alleviate her PTSD, looks forward to when she can use medical marijuana. She believes marijuana would be a better treatment process than medicine she’s been prescribed before, like Zoloft, because it doesn’t diminish what she calls the “highs” of life.
“If something dulls the lows, it also dulls the highs, which is one reason I like the use of marijuana,” Good said. “It can numb the chronic issues, but it doesn’t numb life.”