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FYI- Ohio getting closer to legalize medical marijuana

https://www.osma.org/Public-Affairs/News/Lawmakers-Introduce-Medical-Marijuana-Plan


Lawmakers Introduce Medical Marijuana Plan
April 14, 2016

Ohio House leaders this week said they will introduce legislation to legalize medical marijuana as early as 2018.

The lawmakers said they will move quickly to push a bill that with Senate support could be on Gov. John Kasich’s desk to sign into law in June. The reason for the sense of urgency, House leaders said during a press conference on Wednesday, was to hopefully take the steam from two separate marijuana constitutional amendments that could be on the ballot in November.

The Ohio State Medical Association (OSMA) issued a statement on Wednesday opposing the House legislation because the measure would allow for medical marijuana for ailments without any clinical research that proves the efficacy of the drug to treat medical conditions.

The OSMA has a policy endorsing additional clinical research and could support the controlled and focus use of marijuana as medicine if such research shows medicinal benefits and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In short, the OSMA believes marijuana should be researched and tested like any other drug that is approved as medicine.

Having said that, the OSMA does believe the Ohio House has set forth a process that allows for the medical marijuana to be more fully vetted as compared to past and pending constitutional amendments. While opposed to the legislation as a whole, the OSMA supports a few provisions within the House proposal, such as:

Requiring that marijuana prescriptions come only from licensed physicians
That marijuana should be reclassified from a Schedule I to a Schedule II drug to loosen restrictions related to clinical research
And data collection requirements that will help assess the effectiveness of prescribing and using marijuana as medicine.

Some other details of the House legislation includes:
A Marijuana Control Commission would be created to establish rules for prescribing and using medical marijuana
Edibles, patches, plant material, and oils will be allowed, including smoking the drug
Dispensaries would operate similar to Ohio's liquor control system—limited by population and communities could choose to deny them
There's no list of qualifying medical conditions, but doctors would have to report every 90 days what conditions they have recommended marijuana for, what forms of marijuana they recommended, and why it was preferable to another medicine.
It explicitly allows employers to maintain drug-free workplaces and does not require employers to make accommodations for patients using medical marijuana.