I could actually cry right now, what a fucking relief
It’s also by a pretty decent margin so far:
With 59% reporting:
55.9% For
44.1% Against
Edit:
56.6% For
43.4% against
I don’t live in Ohio, but I’m right on the state border. So many “vote no on issue 1” signs around here. I was worried that it would fail. Glad to see otherwise.
It’s been polling consistently strong. Those signs you were seeing on the border are not representative of where the majority of Ohioans live.
What people need to take away from this is that the majority very often want things that are denied to them by a minority of voters who have been given disproportionate control.
What were seeing is direct democracy in action. No gerrymandered districts, just the people voting for what they fuck they want, and majority rules.
If we had more of that (not full direct democracy 24/7 but more than we have now) you’d see a lot more popular things actually get done.
There’s danger there, populism is a double edged sword, but the opposite extreme is what we have now: a majority of people consistently and perpetually having their will undermined by a minority entirely because of their zip code, while the Republicans the minority gives power to continue to make this even worse.
When you actually look at national polling, the majority of people want a lot of things that have no hope of ever making it through Congress any time in the near future because of obstruction from red states that get disproportionate power entirely because of geography. This is untenable.
My polling place is right next to a sizeable Catholic church, and the amount of “vote no on issue 1” signs I saw in front of it was almost comical
I drive primarily in the country and it’s been interesting to see how deep the divide is between rural and urban areas.
Maga flags above American flags everywhere. No on issue 1 signs everywhere. A couple handmade signs who’s message is summed up with “keep potheads out of Ohio”.
Four houses in particular amuse me when I pass. Two had one sign out from each, then the NO sign multiplied into 3,spaced along the road. So YES put up 3 more signs for 4 total. NO put out a few more scattered around the yard, and in response YES put up what looks like 30 or so randomly scattered over the yard.
Similarly in a different county, a YES sign went up, and in response the neighbor put up a NO THINK OF THE CHILDREN sign big enough to block the YES SIGN. Maybe 6ft wide. So YES put up a 10ft tall banner mounted on a 20ft scaffold in the middle of the yard with bullet points about the issue under the VOTE YES stuff.
Honestly given a couple of the areas I’ve been through, I wouldn’t put it past some neighbors to put a brick through someone’s window or a bullet through a wall just for having the YES sign out front.
And this is after they tried very very hard to rig the election to put obstacles in the way of people voting for the measure.
Actually getting abortion bans in place is the “dog that caught the car” moment for Republicans. The world is so complicated and people have so little attention to spare, that the GOP can get away with blaming “the economy” or “jobs” or “crime” on the Democrats, and for the most part, people who support them will go with it, even though they spend most of their time being in power making the problems worse and stealing money for themselves and their friends.
Abortion is dead simple. If people know someone who’s suffering in a terrifying way, and it’s because of something the Republicans have been banging their fists on the table about how bad they want to do it for the last fifty years, it becomes a lot harder to shift the blame.
Edit: I backwards
They are talking about an earlier, even more out of cycle ohio constitutional amendment that would have made it much, much harder to pass any amendments. They force marched it into its own election as soon as the abortion and weed amendments hit the necessary thresholds to be on the upcoming November ballot. It would have gone into affect immediately. It was a very transparent attempt to derail abortion rights by the state GOP.
It had its own special election, after they banned the exact type of election a year earlier. It shifted the burden of “yes” from 50% +1 vote to 60%, and most nefariously, shifted the requirments to get an amendment on the ballot form "X voters in half of all districts (44 of 88) to “X voters in all 88 districts,” i.e even the tiny 1k ones that lean 90% Republican. They tried to basically give veto power over all future constitutional amendments to tiny, very, very conservative counties.
Voters rejected it 57% to 43%, which ironically would not have passed it under its own requirements, but would have under the current requirements if the numbers were inverted. If they had a legit bone in their body, they would have imposed a one time “60%” threshold for it as that’s what they were forcing all future votes to, but we all know their bulllshit.
You mean the part where they held a special election in August after writing rules to BAN special elections in August (unless they involved budget crises)? The supermajority 60% of the Aug Issue 1 would’ve tanked this if they had their way (or kept it from hitting the ballot with the 80~ county petition requirement).
THEN they had the gall to change the language on today’s Issue 1 text.
I’m so proud right now, big win for a state that’s had a lot of fails lately (i.e. literal train wrecks that got swept under the rug).
Also: how well do you all think the inclusion of Issue 2 here REALLY brought out the voters? I heard a lot of pot smokers got out of bed early today for it - had to add some extra push for Issue 1.
Issue 2, legalizing recreational marijuana for people over 21, is also projected to pass.
Psychedelics need to be next. That step will take a bit, but it’ll be awesome if that happens.
Colorado did good in setting the example, I believe. There wasn’t a huge push to monetize it and the most common psychedelics were made fully legal to produce, use and give away.
In some ways, I don’t really see mushrooms easily fitting into the dispensary model that we have here already. It’s just a different kind of drug, s’all.
Here in California my local smoke shop sells psilocybin infused chocolates under the table, but everyone knows about it and they’re all branded and clean looking
It’s legit a dream come true to pop by on the way home Friday for a trip on the weekend, and the idea that it’s illegal disgusts me
I read up on those, and (generally speaking, YMMV) the amount of active ingredient is ineffectively negligible, if there’s any detectable at all. Not what I want to spend my money on.
In some ways, I don’t really see mushrooms easily fitting into the dispensary model that we have here already.
In Massachusetts the dispensaries are giving out mushroom chocolates as “gifts” since they are decriminalized but not yet legal to “sell”
So at least in some states they are already being integrated into the dispensary market ahead of legalization.
From what I’ve seen you really need to eat the whole bar to get a legit trip but at least they are available to the general public. I suspect that given a little time (and actual legalization) there will be a wider variety of stronger products available.
They are likely playing it safe to avoid any mishaps that could damage their PR or their grey market psilocybin business
I think psychedelics are interesting because their non-addictive nature doesn’t cause competition for other drug companies.
There simply isn’t a way to make egregious profits with them. Mushrooms are cheap and easy to grow. LSD, while being exceptionally hard to make, is effective in such small dosages it ends up being significantly cheaper than mushrooms.
I guess the biggest fear would be psychedelics causing people to ‘wake up’ to what they’ve been ignorant of. There’s also the “I don’t do it and so neither should anyone else crowd,” but I don’t think they’re plentiful in Colorado.
Ohio still sucks but at least passing through will be bearable now
Yeah well feel free to enjoy some of our lovely weed and abortions when you do.
As a Michigander this is physically painful to say… but you done good Ohio.
Michigan won’t be flying as high anymore on Ohioan’s dollars for marijuana, either!
For at least a couple more years we will. It took us a bit to set up our system. Probably will take you a couple as well. Takes time to build a distribution network too, since you can’t really import it from growers in other states, so for a while ours will probably be cheaper.
But it’s still a huge win and it’s better for us all to have more states legalize it. And in the meantime we can just both suck Indiana dry of marijuana money.
Thank you, genuinely! I know there’s a lot of bad blood but Michigan is stunning and my last few visits have been spectacular (yes even before any cannabis).
I hope you all can find the beauty in Ohio too. I recommend Kelly’s Island for the glacial grooves. Also the Cleveland Metroparks; there’s a good reason it was once called the Forest City.
Good job, Ohio. Despite our strange relationship I’ll call this one a win for everyone.
