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A worker cultivates a special strain of medical marijuana known as Charlotte's Web on Feb. 7 inside a greenhouse in a remote spot in the mountains west of Colorado Springs, Colo. Charlotte's Web is a proprietary strain of marijuana in which the psychoactive THC has largely been bred out, and the other cannabinoid compounds thought to be medically useful accentuated. Increasing evidence that the pot strain is helping some children with epilepsy has led more than 100 families to relocate to Colorado for treatment since last summer, when success stories about Charlotte's Web began circulating via social media. / Brennan Linsley/AP

http://www.marionstar.com/article/20140307/NEWS01/303070017?nclick_check=1

n 2003, Rob Ryan was diagnosed with cancer — the second of his three battles against the disease. This time, it was in his colon.

Chemotherapy was wreaking havoc in his body. He wasn’t eating. Medicines his doctor prescribed didn’t stem his nausea. He was allergic to the opiates he received. Ryan, of Cincinnati, was wasting away.

“So I said, ‘Forget this,’ and I started to use marijuana. It worked,” Ryan told The Cincinnati Enquirer. He smoked in an upstairs bathroom. Soon, even his wife was convinced.

That use was illegal. However, an overwhelming majority of Ohio voters think that should change: Eighty-seven percent of Ohioans polled think use of medical marijuana under the care of a doctor should be legal, according to a poll released this past week.

A wave of support for the issue is building nationally, too: Twenty states and the District of Columbia already have legalized medicinal cannabis, and advocates from the Marijuana Policy Project say they’re close in Minnesota and New York. They’ve also targeted 15 states to be next in legalizing recreational use of marijuana, following Colorado and Washington.

Even with all the support, Ohio doesn’t appear likely to change its marijuana laws in 2014. Medical marijuana advocates have gathered 50,000 of the more than 385,000 signatures they’d need by July 2 to put an issue on the ballot this year.They estimate they need as much as $10.5 million to gather the signatures and run a campaign, but say they have about $50,000in donations they’ve received or have been promised. And Republicans in the Ohio Legislature are unwilling to bring the issue for a vote.

The state has three medical marijuana amendments whose language has been approved by the attorney general and the bipartisan Ohio Ballot Board. The Ohio Cannabis Rights Amendment has the most momentum, but its supporters would need to hire a signature gathering firm in the next month to have hope of qualifying for the November ballot, much less pay for a campaign if they do get the issue on the ballot.

The Ohio Rights Group, which is behind the amendment, is seeking meetings with national groups that have helped to pay for successful campaigns, such as the Marijuana Policy Project and the Drug Policy Alliance. So far, none of the organizations have agreed to meet with the Ohioans, said John Pardee, president of the Ohio Rights Group. But Pardee said he hears the groups are open to the idea.

Bob Fitrakis, a political scientist at Columbus State Community College who ran for governor in 2006 with the support of the Green Party, said he thinks national donors should be excited about the 8-to-1 support for medical marijuana in the Quinnipiac University poll, including 78 percent of Republican respondents.

The poll used the word “prescribe” to describe a doctor’s involvement with medical marijuana. In Ohio, doctors merely would diagnose a patient with a qualifying ailment, so support might be a few points lower if the actual amendment language were used. But it’s still likely high enough that opposition to the measure probably would not be able to defeat it, said Fitrakis, who is serving as attorney for the Ohio Rights Group.

“The other side can have a ton of money, but to blast away at 87 percent, that maybe might get it down to the 60s,” he said.

A slim majority of Ohioans in the poll — 51 percent — said they’d support allowing adults in Ohio to possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use and said they did not think the drug led people to use other drugs.

Despite the support among voters, Ohio’s elected officials oppose legalizing medical marijuana through the Legislature.

State Rep. Bob Hagan, D-Youngstown, has introduced two measures to legalize and regulate marijuana use, like alcohol use, and to allow patients to use cannabis for medical purposes. The measures have been shunned by both Republicans and Democrats: Hagan has only one co-sponsor on the outright legalization and two on medical marijuana.

“I think that there’s a fear of people branding them in the next election at pot-smoking ne’er-do-wells,” Hagan said of his colleagues in the Statehouse. “I’m confused at why they continuously ignore the issues that I think would relieve a lot of people who are suffering from pain. Twenty states have already done it. Why are we so slow?”

House Speaker Bill Batchelder, R-Medina, said he can’t imagine a scenario in which the measures advance. He worries legalized marijuana would be abused, as prescription pain killers have been, leading to the heroin epidemic facing the region.

“I know what happened with the opioids,” Batchelder told reporters this past week. “I know what’s happening today in our schools, what’s happening with children who are presented with a dish full of medications.”

Gov. John Kasich took a stance against medical marijuana in 2012.

“Physicians tell me we don’t need that. There’s better ways to help people who are in pain,” he said.

The American Medical Association continues to call cannabis “a dangerous drug” and “public health concern” and opposes legalizing the sale of marijuana, although it has called for clinical studies on marijuana as a medicine. Those studies are necessary to turn pot into safe, “proper medicine,” with specific dosages and known side effects, said Marcie Seidel, executive director of the Columbus-based Drug Free Action Alliance.

But safety is exactly one reason advocates say they support medical cannabis. They say smoking or ingesting the plant is a safer way to address pain than taking an opiate that could form a habit, lead to an overdose or move a person closer to using heroin.

“Marijuana is safer than any opiate drug out there,” said Ryan, of Cincinnati, who is president of the Ohio chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and also works for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

“Opiates kill people,” he said. “Marijuana doesn’t.”