Ohio Weed Legalization Will Mostly Benefit Nick Lachey and a Couple Other Rich Guys

November 4th, 2015

Awake Goy

Ohio Weed Legalization Will Mostly Benefit Nick Lachey and a Couple Other Rich Guys

Legalizing weed is a great idea: fewer arrests and incarcerations, smaller prison population, more tax revenue, less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Also, in Ohio, it will make Nick Lachey a big fat pile of money.

Lachey is one of a small group of investors who stand to benefit if the Buckeye State passes a ballot measure today that would simultaneously legalize pot and create an effective monopoly on growing it in the state. Unlike any previous legalization efforts, Ohio’s ballot issue 3 specifies that a group of 10 farmers would have exclusive rights to weed farming—and it was financially backed chiefly by those same farmers and their wealthy investors, including Lachey and NBA hall-of-famer Oscar Robertson. (ResponsibleOhio is also the first well-funded pro-legalization group to feature an anthropomorphized dank nug as a mascot, as far as we know.)

In other words, the ballot iniative creates a marijuana cartel, which presents something of a dilemma for earnest young lefties: on the one hand, you’re legalizing pot. Great! On the other, you’re handing complete control of the industry to a cabal of politically manipulative rich guys from the get-go. Bad! Pot activists, understandably, are split.

Theoretically, there is a third option: ballot issue two, known as the Ohio Initiated Monopolies Amendment, meant to protect “the initiative process from being used for personal economic benefit.” If voted in today, it would create a new amendment to the state’s constitution barring the creation of oligopolies like the weed growers group. Issue two doesn’t mention marijuana specifically, but it was created specifically to block the passage of issue three on the grounds that the state shouldn’t allow these investors to write laws specifically designed to make them wealthier. If issue two is passed, it will nullify issue three