Ohio voters on Tuesday soundly rejected a measure that would have made it the first US midwestern state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, local media projections said.
Issue 3, which would have added an amendment to the state constitution that legalizes both the personal and medical use of marijuana for those over 21 years old, was defeated by nearly a two-to-one margin, the projections said.
The measure was criticized for allowing the main backers of the proposal cartel-like powers over the industry in the state for several years, an arrangement that rubbed many voters who supported legalization of the drug the wrong way, analysts said.
Photo: Reuters
With 75 percent of precincts reporting, the measure lost in every one of the state’s 87 counties, with one county not reporting. It also lost in urban areas and counties with a large population of college students, with 1,628,521 voting against and 887,327 voting for legalization.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican running for US president, said in a statement that he was “proud Ohioans voted no on Issue 3 and instead chose a path that helps strengthen our families and communities.”
Ohio is considered a political bellwether, with the candidate who wins the state usually winning the presidency. A victory for recreational marijuana in Ohio could have changed the national conversation on legalization, said Gary Daniels of the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union.
The states that have legalized the recreational usage of marijuana are Alaska, Colorado, Washington and Oregon, as well as the District of Columbia. About two dozen states allow its use for medical purposes.
Seven other states are expected to vote on recreational marijuana legalization next year.
Issue 3 would have granted exclusive rights for commercial marijuana growth and distribution to 10 facilities across the state. Those facilities are owned by investors in the legalization movement.
Critics say that creates a monopoly, and responded with a rival ballot measure called Issue 2. That would nullify legalization if it creates “an economic monopoly or special privilege” for a private entity.
With more than half of all precincts reporting, Issue 2 was passing with a 4 percent margin.
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has endorsed the legalization measure, although with “some hesitancy” because of the limited number of growing sites, NORML political director Danielle Keane said.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened