In Ohio, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters stated Tuesday that he believes the state’s current marijuana laws are “useless,” and that enforcing them is a “major waste of resources for law enforcement.”
Deters, a Republican known as one of Ohio’s toughest prosecutors, announced on Monday that he established a committee to study the positives and negatives of marijuana legalization. The task force will work in conjunction with ResponsibleOhio, the group bringing a legalization measure to the state’s fall ballot.
Deters stated that legalization is “coming across the county. The key is how to regulate.” However, he would not go so far as to outright support the change, nor will he necessarily support ResponsibleOhio’s measure.
No other non-judicial officeholder in Ohio currently supports legalization. ResponsibleOhio has been working to garner support for its proposal in other places, such as the state’s Fraternal Order of Police. The union’s president, Jay McDonald, said he has not yet been convinced by the ResponsibleOhio proposal, though he has conducted a comparative study of it with those that passed in Oregon and Colorado.
Meanwhile, the executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriff’s Association, Robert Cornwell, said that ResponsibleOhio has not approached them, and needn’t. “We will oppose the legalization of marijuana. Our board made that clear in March.”
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Photo Credit: Jim Bowen