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A Particularly Awful Way to Legalize Marijuana Possession

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Jonathan Adler has this post at the Volokh Conspiracy.  The title is his description of Issue 3 on the Ohio ballot.

Issue 3 would create a marijuana "monopoly" (actually, an oligopoly) consisting of 10 producers who would have their exclusive rights to engage in the commercial production of marijuana enshrined in the state constitution. The campaign in support of Issue 3 -- so-called Responsible Ohio -- is predictably supported by those who would hold these exclusive rights. This is crony capitalism at its worst.
As I have mentioned on this blog before, I see a legalized marijuana industry as a greater threat than legalization as such.  Legal producers with a First Amendment right to promote their product will increase consumption considerably above and beyond what legalization alone will do, as we have seen so disastrously with tobacco, and that is not good.

My solution, given that I think legalization is inevitable, is for the government to monopolize the business itself, as some states do with liquor at the retail level and many states do with the numbers racket at the wholesale level.  Few seem to be interested in that, though.  Some people are dead set against legalization in any form despite the seeming inevitability, and some are gung ho for maximizing consumption despite the medical evidence of ill effects and the slim-to-none benefits.

The legislature has put another proposition on the same ballot forbidding putting monopolies in the state constitution.  What happens if they both pass?  In California we have a nice, clear rule.  If two contradictory measures pass on the same ballot, the one that gets more votes prevails.  (Article II ยง 10(b).)  Apparently Ohio has no clear answer.

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