Last updated on June 22, 2005.

In the 1970s, Ohio decriminalized marijuana for personal use. The Ohio law is the most permissive of any marijuana decriminalization legislation in the United States. It fines the offender $100 for the possession of 100 grams or less of marijuana with no jail time and no criminal record. Unfortunately, this has been the only successful reform in Ohio. Ohio ranks 35th in the nation in treatment spending and has terrible racial disparities in its prison system. There are more African-Americans in prison today in Ohio than in Ohio colleges and universities (23,200 to 20,074).

In November of 2002, voters defeated an initiative, Issue One, that would have provided Proposition 36-style treatment instead of incarceration for first- and second-time drug offenders. Issue One would have saved Ohioans $20 million dollars per year and would have pulled Ohio from the basement of a backwards drug policy that saw a 211% increase in corrections spending from 1985 to 2000.

Slight progress has been made in providing treatment to drug offenders with the state's Second Chance to Change 90-day treatment program for prisoners, but Ohio is still in desperate need of drug reform to address drug abuse as a public health rather than criminal justice issue, mitigate the racial disparities in prison, and close the state's budget gap.

This year, the Ohio legislature is close to passing a flawed drugged driving bill. Under this bill, testing at or above extremely low set levels of a substance would result in a “driving under the influence of drugs” charge. The drug test results alone would be “prima facie” proof of guilt, meaning that a person who tested at or above the limit would have no defense. This approach is based on blood alcohol content testing, but unlike alcohol, many other drugs are detectible long after any impairment has ended. This bill would also require costly implementation of roadside drug testing, and risks identifying false positives for people who use medical marijuana, stand near someone smoking marijuana at a concert, or even eat poppy seeds.  We are actively working to repair the flaws in the proposed legislation.