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Welcome to the anniversary of the Great Cannabis Comeback. 20 years ago it seemed industrial hemp’s eminence here in the state with the heart of it all seemed not so far away. A few years tops, advocates thought. The subject was in the news regularly, pop culture was catching on and products ranging from textiles to food and cosmetics were becoming mainstream. It wasn’t just a fad.

There was a big problem with the poll numbers though, with Ohio voters being a walloping 40 percent undecided. This resulted in the funding plan for the industrial hemp and medical use initiative going up in smoke. The ball had to be handed off to the people to whom it would matter the most: The farmers. This is what the politicians were asking for with any hopes of a legslative bill.  

Considering all plastics can be made from the cellulose and its seed more nutritious than a soybean, it shouldn’t be that hard of a position for them to advocate. It’s not marijuana.

In late November, Ohio marijuana aficionados waited with excitement to see which 12 companies would receive a coveted Level 1 mega-grow cultivation license. To everyone’s surprise, of the 109 applicants, 73 were “disqualified.” Other irregularities in the selection process began to appear.

Another surprise came on December 11 when Jimmy Gould of ResponsibleOhio fame, whose company CannaAscend was “disqualified,” announced at a Cincinnati press conference that he and fellow RO founder Ian James were preparing a “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Amendment” for the fall 2018 ballot.

I caught up with Ian, a long-time colleague, to learn more:

MJB: How does it feel to be back?

IJ: I love this stuff.

MJB: Is Ohio ready for adult use marijuana?

IJ: I trust the voters before the bureaucrats. Our research shows that 6 in 10 Ohio voters support legalizing marijuana for adult use. And the numbers keep growing. A Pew (Research Center) poll from 1998 had 81 percent opposed. Both Pew and Gallup now find 64 percent/34 percent in favor nationwide showing that marijuana has strong unflappable majority support.

We’ve heard this story too many times before, but it’s worth repeating in Columbus because the local version of this reality is so surreal and wrong it’s almost as if this community has refused to process it.

The West Side’s golden age was replaced with a casino that hasn’t revitalized the West Side as hoped, and is essentially sucking money out of Central Ohio at an increasing rate.

A few miles past the Hilltop in the years following WWII, two huge manufacturing plants emerged. General Motors built an auto-parts plant at the corner of West Broad and Georgesville, and in walking distance from this plant, White Westinghouse built a plant manufacturing dishwashers.

“The West Side was hopping,” says lifelong Hilltop resident Jim Ogden. “Both those plants were running three shifts a day.”

Thank Mother Earth 2017 is finally over. It was a year that chewed me up, crapped me out, made sweet love to me, punched me in the gut, stole my lunch money, made me laugh, pantsed me, and gave me hope. And I’m only talking about American politics.

It all began with saying goodbye to Barack Obama, the biggest disappointment since losing your virginity. His departure was going to be the end of congressional gridlock and political baby steps. Special interests, criminals, and Valerie Jarrett would no longer decide the nation’s fate while the president negotiated speaking fees with Cantor Fitzgerald. The people would take back their government, they would take back their lives. Yet, as we know all too painfully, the euphoria was immediately extinguished when Hurricane Donald made landfall.

Let’s all take a moment to savor this great grass-roots U.S. Senate victory in Alabama of Democrat Doug Jones over alleged child molester Roy Moore. Let’s also celebrate the victory of the moderate Ralph Northam over the extremist Republican Ed Gillespie to be governor of Virginia, and a possible flip of the Virginia Legislature, with the influx of a strong contingent of progressive women.

Breathe deep. Stretch up your arms. Shout for joy.

OK?

Now let’s use all that great new energy to fend off Donald Trump’s twin assaults on net neutrality and our core economy.

Losing could leave us blind and impoverished. So don’t even think about it.

On net neutrality, the fight is ongoing and long-term.

On Trump’s tax scam, we have at best a few days.

A mass movement already is in place to save the internet.

While the whole world watches Tuesday’s Alabama US Senate election, race-based battles behind the scenes could decide the outcome.

They focus on likely stripping of voter rolls to prevent African-Americans from casting their rightful ballots, and flipping the electronic outcome should that prove insufficient.

The national Democratic Party has poured significant resources into this race.We hope it will provide careful scrutiny on whether legitimate citizens are allowed to vote, and on how the votes are actually counted.

In particular, we urge that there be no definitive concession shy of a full recount, and of public hearings on who was allowed the right to vote and who was denied it, including access to regular rather than provisional ballots.

Three key voter access issues include:

There’s not a single independent record store on High Street across from campus. Thus the apocalypse for off-campus has officially arrived even though the bell has been tolling for the previous two decades.

True, the internet has caused record stores to almost go the way of the dinosaurs, but to think there’s not a Used Kids, a Johnny-Go’s, or a Magnolia Thunderpussy between Lane and Chittenden says a lot. High Street has become antiseptic, or better yet, a septic tank of corporate bull poop. And a Target is on its way, whoop-de-do.

Ohio State and their non-profit Campus Partners got to work in 1995 following the tragic murder of OSU student Stephanie Hummer and they should be commended. But you may remember how Campus Partners said they wouldn’t demolish High Street’s independent and quirky vibe.

Now their mission to clean-up High Street is approaching an end stage. It’s clear however “clean-up” was a veiled way to describe how they wanted to also corporatize campus. In essence, make it more appealing to rich parents and their trust-fund children who are considering OSU for higher education.

How did fentanyl get into a Franklin County jail cell and kill Brent Gibney? His parents want an answer to this question after their son Brent Gibney, 29, died at Grant Hospital on October 4. He had been found unconscious “in his cell” at the Franklin County Jail, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s office.

Debbie Gibney, Brent’s mother, told the Free Press that the Franklin County Coroner’s office confirmed to her that her son died of a fentanyl overdose. “They told me had two and a half times the lethal dose of fentanyl in him,” she said.
Grant Hospital medical records obtained by the Free Press document that Gibney’s urine test came back positive for fentanyl.

Gibney’s parents were never contacted about their son’s death by county jail officials. In a statement to the Free Press, Debbie claimed that “We actually heard from another inmate about his passing.” She said, “The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department is not saying why or what killed him,” though the Franklin County Sheriff’s Official Offense Report noted that “unknown white powder” was in Gibney’s cell.

With family and community support, Edith Espinal is striving to keep her spirits up as she lives in sanctuary at the Columbus Mennonite Church to evade a deportation order. But immigration enforcement is doing what it can to make sanctuary feel like incarceration.

Espinal was notified in mid-August that she was slated for deportation. Since then she has been forced to wear an ankle bracelet GPS monitor that tracks her location. The monitor is owned and managed by GEO Group, a private company that contracts its correctional and detention services to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

GEO Group gave generously to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Despite numerous lawsuits for wrongful death, terrible living conditions, and violating anti-slavery laws in its detention centers, GEO Group was awarded another lucrative federal contract after Trump was elected.