Boardman Police Chief Todd Werth says without studying the impact of legalizing recreational marijuana in other states that have done so, he would have a hard time telling Ohioans whether legalizing the drug would be a good idea or not.

But as a police chief, he has a string of questions he hopes will be answered before the Nov. 7 election. Will crime rise? Will legalizing recreational marijuana negatively impact the health of Ohioans, cause more crashes or lead to more impaired driving?

“We haven’t dived into this to look into it,” Werth said, noting that even studying how legalization affected other states might not give a true picture of how Ohio might be impacted.

“Maybe a state that has different makeup in population density, age groups, we have to make sure it’s appropriate for Ohio,” he added.

Werth has concerns about legalization without knowing all of the facts because “It’s kind of hard to put the genie back in the bottle on this.” If marijuana restrictions are reduced and there are negative consequences, “it’s sometimes hard to go back, so I think we have to be very cautious of something like this.”

Passage of Issue 2 would allow adults 21 and over to buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis, also known as marijuana, and to grow plants at home. A 10% tax would be imposed on purchases, to be spent on issues such as administrative costs and addiction treatment programs.

Werth said he hopes that legalized marijuana would not make it harder to hold people accountable for causing serious crashes while impaired by marijuana.

“As a parent, I’m not in favor of it, personally, but from a professional standpoint, I’m looking at the impact on our community,” Werth said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that “marijuana, like alcohol, negatively affects several skills required for safe driving. It can slow reaction time and ability to make decisions, can impair coordination and distort perception. Using it with other substances such as alcohol can increase impairment. Some studies have shown an association between marijuana use and car crashes, but “more research is needed,” the CDC states.

Marijuana use can harm lung tissues and damage small blood vessels, and its use “has been linked to social anxiety, depression and schizophrenia, though scientists don’t yet fully understand the relationships between these mental health disorders and marijuana use,” the CDC states.

Edibles or food and drink products infused with marijuana have some different risks than smoked marijuana, including a greater risk of poisoning, the CDC states. Consuming marijuana can make children very sick.

Werth said the state Legislature has imposed many new laws on law enforcement that have “unintended bureaucratic consequences.” Because of that, law enforcement sometimes wonders what type of difficulties they will encounter when they try to enforce the next new law or what to do if it creates a new problem. “Law enforcement is always cautious,” he said.

SHERIFF PAUL MONROE

Similarly to Werth, Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe said he believes Ohioans do not yet know enough about how legalizing recreational marijuana will affect the state.

“Ohio is moving way too fast on this as far as legalizing recreational marijuana without fully understanding the risks and the costs associated with it and putting out there to the public what is going to happen with these dollars.

“We look at the damage that could potentially occur throughout the state, a lot of money is there to be made, but it is going to be made by a small number of people who benefit from it,” he said.

Monroe said he does not know what the potency levels would be of the THC that consumers would get, but says the potency of marijuana today is much higher than it was in the “Woodstock days.” THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) is believed to be the main ingredient that produces the psychoactive effect of marijuana, according to the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency.

“You have to look at the legislation, and that’s why I say we’re moving very fast,” Monroe said. “These are questions we are throwing out right now. The exact legislation really has to be understood.”

The Tribune Chronicle / Vindicator reviewed the full text of the legislation and could not find a clear answer to that.

Monroe said, “If you look at the THC levels, there is very high potency now — edibles, cookies, candy, ice cream, waxes. The THC level can be up to 99%, which is very powerful compared to the Woodstock days, which was coming in with a THC level of about 5%. So it’s not the marijuana that was seen in the ’70s. It is powerful stuff.”

He cited U.S. National Institutes of Health as his source. The NIH published a report regarding a 2018 study that found the potency of marijuana was less than 2% in the 1960s and 1980s, but “in the 1990s it grew to 4%, and between 1995 and 2015, there has been a 212% increase in the THC contents in marijuana flower.”

Monroe also has concerns about marijuana being laced with fentanyl, though that would presumably not happen with legalized marijuana, he said. He also said he wants to know about studies on THC and the effect on the brain.

He said he has learned that regular users of marijuana might lose eight points on the intelligence scale by using the drug, and it could “permanently affect their memory and ability to learn.”

The same NIH report regarding marijuana potency also cites a 2012 study in New Zealand that reports an “average loss of 8 IQ points with early persistent teen use of marijuana.”

Monroe said he was in Michigan in recent months, where recreational marijuana is legal.

“I can tell you from early morning until I was going to bed, literally anywhere I went, whether it was in neighborhoods or in restaurants, the odor of marijuana could be smelled everywhere,” he said. “I don’t think we should have to tolerate this all of the time,” Monroe said.

“I got up in the morning and the weather was very nice, and I went outside to have coffee and already at 6:30, I could smell the odor of burnt marijuana.”

He said there is evidence of crime increasing in Colorado after recreational marijuana became legalized in 2012. The first stores opened in 2014.

“I’m not saying with legalizing marijuana we’re going to have a crime wave. I would certainly hope that is not the case,” Monroe said. “But I don’t think you will see a lot of people in law enforcement jumping up and down to support this legislation.”

He added: “I have to look at it and say is legalizing marijuana going to make us better? I don’t think it does. At the end of the day, we’re going to do our job. If this is what the people want, we’re going to continue to do our job, and we will change our ways in the way the public wants.”

He noted that it is easy to observe the odor from smoked marijuana in a vehicle or on a person, but about the only clues as to intoxication if a person is consuming edible marijuana is “your actions,” so law enforcement needs “to be more perceptive and alert to what we are observing to get our job done.”

The CDC states: “Marijuana, which can also be called cannabis, weed, pot, or dope, refers to the dried flowers, leaves, stems, and seeds of the cannabis plant. The cannabis plant contains more than 100 compounds (or cannabinoids). These compounds include tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is impairing or mind-altering, as well as other active compounds, such as cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is not impairing, meaning it does not cause a “high.”

SHERIFF GREENE

Mahoning County Sheriff Jerry Greene expressed concern about how the new law would affect the safety of the roadways but declined to talk in depth on legalization of recreational marijuana, saying he has the “luxury of just being able to enforce what the law ends up being from what (voters) decide.”

GINA DEGENOVA

Mahoning County Prosecutor Gina DeGenova said prosecuting impaired driving in marijuana cases will not be a problem, despite the perception about the difficulty surrounding it.

“Impaired driving is and will continue to be illegal regardless of whether marijuana is legalized,” she said.

She added, “alcohol is legal, but it’s illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired through alcohol consumption. Likewise, even if marijuana use becomes legal, it would remain illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired through marijuana use.”

DeGenova went on to say that they will continue to use the same testing a procedures that they have in the past. They also will still depend on “the throughness of the investigation” which will include observations of the suspect’s condition post-crash, collection of the sample and adherence to the procedures outlined in the Ohio law.

RESEARCH PROJECT

A 2021 research project carried out in the state of Washington, which also legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, suggests reasons why law enforcement might be reluctant to comment — the challenges of enforcing such laws.

A study by eight professors and others at Washington State University included interviews with 92 law enforcement professionals.

One takeaway was that “Numerous (law enforcement officers) report receiving minimal direction from their immediate supervisors or agency administrators regarding how to carry out the new law.”

One officer said, “I didn’t understand how it was going to be enforced, how it was going to affect me as a police officer.” Another officer said there was a lot of “just muddling through things to a degree.”

Some officers said that not understanding how to detect cannabis intoxication “led them to generally avoid cannabis-related investigations.”

GOVERNMENT STUDY

A July 2021 report on the impacts of marijuana legalization in Colorado produced by the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice was mandated by the Colorado General Assembly.

One finding came from the Colorado State Patrol, which found that after recreational marijuana became legal, the amount of drunken driving that involved alcohol dropped, while the amount of drunken driving involving marijuana rose.

It showed that the number of drunken driving offenses in which alcohol was the only substance found decreased by 45% (4,820 in 2014 compared with 2,670 in 2020).

The number of offenses in which marijuana alone or marijuana in combination with other substances increased by 120% (684 in 2014 compared to 1,508 in 2020). The prevalence of marijuana alone increased from 6.3% in 2014 to 8.7% in 2020.

The research indicated that legalizing recreational marijuana did not significantly change the amount of marijuana use among 18- to 25-year-olds, but it increased use among adults 26 and older 19.8%. It tripled use among people 65 and older — from 3% to 9.3%. The data came from questions asked to people convicted of drunken driving offenses and ordered to take treatment classes to get their driver’s license back.

The percentage of people in Colorado participating in treatment for alcohol as their primary substance declined from 93% in 2012 to 84% in 2019. Clients reporting marijuana as their primary substance of abuse increased from 5% to 12% of drunken driving admissions during that same time period, the study reported.

The study found that disciplinary incidents related to drug use among youth under age 18 had not increased since recreational marijuana legalization began in 2013.

The study also found that the proportion of Colorado youth reporting marijuana use remained unchanged between 2005 and 2019 at about 20.6%.

POLICE RESOURCE

An October 2020 article on the Police1.com website reported on a national survey Police1 and Louisiana State University conducted on law enforcement attitudes toward legalized marijuana.

It found that 48% of 3,615 sworn law enforcement officers participating in the survey strongly agreed that marijuana is a gateway to other substance abuse, and 29% somewhat agreed that it is a gateway drug. It reported that 57% were against legalization of recreational marijuana, and and 26% were against legalizing medical marijuana.

Police1.com is part of the company Lexicol, which provides policy-writing services for 3,000 public safety agencies in 35 states.

erunyan@vindy.com