WARREN — As Election Day nears, Ohio voters are mulling the decision of whether to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use.

If passed, Issue 2 would make Ohio the 24th state to allow adult cannabis use to be “commercialized, regulated, legalized and taxed,” according to the voter’s ballot.

It would allow Ohioans to possess up to 2.5 ounces and grow up to six plants at home per person, or a maximum of 12 plants for a household of two.

Sales of recreational marijuana products would be taxed at 10%. The sales tax revenue would go to the state with some proceeds going toward regulatory services. Funds also would go toward “cannabis social equity and jobs funds,” a “host community cannabis fund” and to pay for “substance abuse and addition funds,” according to a summary of the law.

The initiative was written and proposed by the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana, which has been one of the leading voices for the legalization of recreational marijuana use. The group delivered more than 200,000 signatures from Ohio voters to Secretary of State Frank LaRose in January in support of the proposed bill — well above the 137,887 vote threshold Republican Senate President Matt Huffman said it would take the issue to the floor for a vote.

A USA Today Network / Suffolk University survey of Ohio conducted in July showed the initiative is favored by more than half of Ohio voters with 58.6% in favor of legalization.

Having the ability to grow marijuana at home though is one of the topics that has risen from the debate of Issue 2. Some highlight positive things like personal health, while others are opposed to the idea of allowing Ohioans to grow marijuana at home.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Army veteran Adolph Keyes Jr., a Washington State resident who served in a Special Forces Operational Detachment team in Afghanistan, has seen the benefits of being able to grow marijuana firsthand.

After returning home in 2016, Keyes found himself battling chronic pain stemming from two injuries sustained during his time spent deployed overseas — resulting in six plates in his spine. To cope with the after effects of his service time, Keyes, at first, relied heavily on pain medication prescribed to him through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

However, the altering state of the drugs, which sometimes triggered memory lapses and dissociation only compounded his struggles to raise his 13-year-old daughter.

I’m always in a fog. I’m always in a cloud; I feel like a zombie,” Keyes said.

Keyes said as his worries grew about his worsening state, a doctor from the VA suggested using medicinal marijuana to quell his “extreme” episodes of anxiety, depression, night terrors and PTSD.

“Almost immediately, I noticed that it was calming me down and just allowing me to relax,” Keyes said.

The transition from opioids to medicinal marijuana wasn’t an all-sweeping cure for his ailments, but Keyes said he could “function and be as normal as I could be.”

GROWING AT HOME

The legal landscape surrounding marijuana has undergone significant changes in Washington State, where Keyes now resides. Following the passing of Initiative 502 in 2012, the recreational use of marijuana became legal for individuals aged 21 and older. This law allows residents to possess and use a limited amount of marijuana for personal consumption.

After finding solace in the therapeutic benefits, Keyes said a mentor inspired him to start growing marijuana at home. This taught him the difference between Sativa, Indica and Hybrid strains. Keyes found particular comfort with Indica strains.

“The body high of the Indica was specifically what I was looking for because of the pain I was in, so I could not take opioids,” Keyes said, while Sativa provided him with energy and Hybrid was a mix.

If Issue 2 passes Tuesday, small home grows would become legal across Ohio. Without getting into the full process of growing marijuana at home, Keyes said his process can be as short as eight weeks but said, “The longer you let it grow, the bigger and more potent or flavorful it will be.”

Once he started growing, Keyes said he built a “blackout room” in his garage to house his setup. He said it was twice the size of a normal dressing room inside an average retail store.

“From top to bottom on both sides, we put a thick black covering over the walls so no light can get in,” he said. “There’s a zipper entrance from the floor to the bottom. My garage lights are green light so that during the day I can open the garage and no direct light reaches through.”

One thing Keyes didn’t account for was the increase in his electricity bill. He said his electric bill rose from around $50 per month to $400 or $500. He said, at times, his lights are on for 18 hours at a stretch when he is growing indoors.

“That’s all day, every day for four months depending,” Keyes said.

Keyes also is constantly running fans and has two 60-gallon garbage cans that are used as a water-tank system, with one containing minerals. He said he also invested in a climate-control system, regular soil and a dehumidifier. He said all of this is expensive but “the more you spend, the better.”

While growing marijuana at home will become legal if Issue 2 passes, CRM spokesperson Tom Haren said he doesn’t believe it will necessarily become popular due to trends in states where recreational marijuana has been legalized.

Haren uses alcohol as an example. Although people can brew their own beer, or make their own wine, there isn’t a rise in home breweries.

“In states that have authorized home grow, almost nobody does it,” Haren said. “It’s hard, it’s expensive and you can buy products at a licensed dispensary instead of growing your own plants.”

While there are potential benefits for Ohioans to grow their own marijuana at home, there also is the other side. Some law enforcement consider it a “slippery slope.”

MARIJUANA ENFORCEMENT

Ohio Fraternal Order of Police President Gary Wolske has been a vocal opposition leader against the efforts of groups like the CRM to legalize weed recreationally.

“There’s nothing in the law to say what you do with those plants after,” Wolske said. “I can grow them and I can sell the marijuana as a street dealer, or I can give it to my neighbor who maybe doesn’t have the setup or the equipment to do it themselves.”

Michael Yanucci, the drug task force commander for the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office, said his law enforcement agency has been waiting for the November election to see what adjustments they would have to make if Issue 2 passes. But they’ve dealt with enforcing home grows in the past.

Yannucci said the sheriff’s office has worked side by side with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and has used a helicopter to make sweeps over northern Trumbull County.

“We would coordinate with them and if they spotted plants, we’d come and pick them up,” Yannucci said, adding those sweeps often uncovered illegal growing operations inside cornfields.

“What they would do is they would go out into the middle of a cornfield and grow it among the crops because they’re taller than a marijuana plant. Even the untrained eye, while in the air, could look down there and know what they were seeing.”

Those sweeps have decreased over the last two years though, Yannucci said. He said the sheriff’s office still does sweeps using its drone unit whenever a report comes in.

Yannucci also said state labs no longer want to test marijuana. They also are being inundated with other drugs fueling the country’s current opioid epidemic.

“The general consensus is there’s a lot of things out there that are more dangerous than marijuana, but we each have our own feelings on that,” Yannucci said.

Yannucci said that changing sentiment around weed can be felt on social media posts from the sheriff’s office following a marijuana-related drug bust.

“A lot of the comments seem to be against our actions so it seems generally speaking that there’s been a change with ties about how people feel about marijuana,” Yannucci said.