Ron Strider
Well-Known Member
The growing, processing, packaging and selling of medical marijuana will soon be a thing in Akron. City Council heard mostly favorable public input Monday before unanimously voting to allow local production and sales, permissible under state law by September 2018 to treat about 20 chronic ailments.
A late bloomer in the Midwest, Akron may be the first city in Ohio to pass local restrictions on the budding industry, giving Akron's elected officials the control to select the best actors in the medical marijuana industry.
Adele Dorfner Roth, Mayor Dan Horrigan's deputy planning director for economic development, said about a dozen organizations or individuals, some speaking on behalf of unknown investors, have called her office to voice interest by asking whether City Council would lift its moratorium on medical marijuana businesses, which Monday's passage does.
"I've been saying all along that I think they will," Roth said, predicting the council's approval. "It's very common-sense."
Roth, however, gave a sober assessment of the economic impact even a full course of medical marijuana facilities would bring to Akron. At best, the city expects to see maybe two dispensaries and one laboratory, one processing plant and one indoor, hydroponic grow site. The largest business, a grow site covering 76,000 square feet, would likely employ 30 or fewer people, she said. Processing plants might provide a couple more jobs, but not many.
And that's if companies really think they can turn a profit under the state's hefty schedule of application fees, some of which top $200,000 annually. Akron will tack on a $2,500 flat fee on all businesses to cover administrative costs.
Local rules
The local regulatory framework closely mirrors state law.
Cultivation facilities must be no closer than 500 feet to churches, schools, playgrounds, libraries or public parks.
The state requires motion-sensor cameras, alarms and a prohibition on unaccompanied loiterers, a city lawyer said. As an additional safety precaution, police will review and reject plans for any medical marijuana business they consider unsafe.
Again a step ahead, Akron will ban the facilities from residential areas.
But the city cannot stop residents from eating or vaping pot in private. State law does prohibit burning it.
"I'm going to smoke it anyway," said Joe Fugo, who attended the afternoon public hearing at City Hall but did not stand up to speak.
Fugo said he's suffered from post-traumatic stress since returning from service in Vietnam. On April 14, 2011 (he remembers the day vividly), he stopped taking the 22 daily pills prescribed by doctors at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Instead, he found someone to sell him weed. He's been smoking ever since.
Wearing a ball cap that sported a marijuana leaf and the words "This bud's for me," Fugo said he supports medical marijuana even though he can't get it. The VA, an arm of the federal government, has no doctor who will prescribe a drug considered illegal under federal law.
High hopes
Leah Levinstein, a Highland Square resident, also attended the public hearing.
She brought a bag of bottled prescription pills. Some her son takes to control seizures, which keep him up at night. Others shrink the tumors on his brain. One makes him smell like fish.
She couldn't name them all in the three minutes each resident is given to speak for or against changes to Akron's zoning ordinance, which the medical marijuana rules do.
"He's a really cool kid, really creative," Levinstein said. "However, the medications that we're giving him now ... are causing a lot of side effects that are hard to watch a 7-year-old boy go through."
Marijuana "might help improve his life," she said, without endangering his liver (a potential side effect that requires the fishy pill) or making him tired or aggressive, as does an antipsychotic pill taken three times daily to stave off the seizures.
"We would like access to cannabis for our son," said Levinstein, who's read promising studies. "We don't know if it will help him. But we know right now, your lifting the moratorium [on sales and production] is one more step to allowing him to have access to that."
Levinstein spoke again Monday night as did other proponents including a young professional who said her company is scouting Akron for a potential grow site and a woman who makes marijuana edibles.
Concerns remain
Ohio has yet to announce a solution to how medical marijuana businesses will handle profits, which are taxable but illegal.
In other states, cash-only transactions allow buyers and sellers to avoid federal prosecution for dealing marijuana. Banks refuse to take the cash to avoid money laundering charges.
The state also hasn't ironed out plans for accepting doctors' orders given to out-of-state patients buying pot in Ohio. Akron City Council may need to revisit its local laws if the state clears these regulatory hurdles.
The third concern is the cost. Because insurance companies won't cover marijuana and Midwestern states tend to have more onerous fees, some on the council and in the public worry that the drug, which they said studies show could reduce opioid overdoses, will be too expensive for those who need it most.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Akron Council approves medical marijuana rules - Break News - Ohio
Author: Doug Livingston
Contact: Contact Us - Ohio
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: Ohio
A late bloomer in the Midwest, Akron may be the first city in Ohio to pass local restrictions on the budding industry, giving Akron's elected officials the control to select the best actors in the medical marijuana industry.
Adele Dorfner Roth, Mayor Dan Horrigan's deputy planning director for economic development, said about a dozen organizations or individuals, some speaking on behalf of unknown investors, have called her office to voice interest by asking whether City Council would lift its moratorium on medical marijuana businesses, which Monday's passage does.
"I've been saying all along that I think they will," Roth said, predicting the council's approval. "It's very common-sense."
Roth, however, gave a sober assessment of the economic impact even a full course of medical marijuana facilities would bring to Akron. At best, the city expects to see maybe two dispensaries and one laboratory, one processing plant and one indoor, hydroponic grow site. The largest business, a grow site covering 76,000 square feet, would likely employ 30 or fewer people, she said. Processing plants might provide a couple more jobs, but not many.
And that's if companies really think they can turn a profit under the state's hefty schedule of application fees, some of which top $200,000 annually. Akron will tack on a $2,500 flat fee on all businesses to cover administrative costs.
Local rules
The local regulatory framework closely mirrors state law.
Cultivation facilities must be no closer than 500 feet to churches, schools, playgrounds, libraries or public parks.
The state requires motion-sensor cameras, alarms and a prohibition on unaccompanied loiterers, a city lawyer said. As an additional safety precaution, police will review and reject plans for any medical marijuana business they consider unsafe.
Again a step ahead, Akron will ban the facilities from residential areas.
But the city cannot stop residents from eating or vaping pot in private. State law does prohibit burning it.
"I'm going to smoke it anyway," said Joe Fugo, who attended the afternoon public hearing at City Hall but did not stand up to speak.
Fugo said he's suffered from post-traumatic stress since returning from service in Vietnam. On April 14, 2011 (he remembers the day vividly), he stopped taking the 22 daily pills prescribed by doctors at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Instead, he found someone to sell him weed. He's been smoking ever since.
Wearing a ball cap that sported a marijuana leaf and the words "This bud's for me," Fugo said he supports medical marijuana even though he can't get it. The VA, an arm of the federal government, has no doctor who will prescribe a drug considered illegal under federal law.
High hopes
Leah Levinstein, a Highland Square resident, also attended the public hearing.
She brought a bag of bottled prescription pills. Some her son takes to control seizures, which keep him up at night. Others shrink the tumors on his brain. One makes him smell like fish.
She couldn't name them all in the three minutes each resident is given to speak for or against changes to Akron's zoning ordinance, which the medical marijuana rules do.
"He's a really cool kid, really creative," Levinstein said. "However, the medications that we're giving him now ... are causing a lot of side effects that are hard to watch a 7-year-old boy go through."
Marijuana "might help improve his life," she said, without endangering his liver (a potential side effect that requires the fishy pill) or making him tired or aggressive, as does an antipsychotic pill taken three times daily to stave off the seizures.
"We would like access to cannabis for our son," said Levinstein, who's read promising studies. "We don't know if it will help him. But we know right now, your lifting the moratorium [on sales and production] is one more step to allowing him to have access to that."
Levinstein spoke again Monday night as did other proponents including a young professional who said her company is scouting Akron for a potential grow site and a woman who makes marijuana edibles.
Concerns remain
Ohio has yet to announce a solution to how medical marijuana businesses will handle profits, which are taxable but illegal.
In other states, cash-only transactions allow buyers and sellers to avoid federal prosecution for dealing marijuana. Banks refuse to take the cash to avoid money laundering charges.
The state also hasn't ironed out plans for accepting doctors' orders given to out-of-state patients buying pot in Ohio. Akron City Council may need to revisit its local laws if the state clears these regulatory hurdles.
The third concern is the cost. Because insurance companies won't cover marijuana and Midwestern states tend to have more onerous fees, some on the council and in the public worry that the drug, which they said studies show could reduce opioid overdoses, will be too expensive for those who need it most.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Akron Council approves medical marijuana rules - Break News - Ohio
Author: Doug Livingston
Contact: Contact Us - Ohio
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: Ohio
