Marijuana (Photo : Reuters)
About $36 million have been raised by the investors to fund the plan of ResponsibleOhio to legalize marijuana in the state and purchase the commercial growing sites pledged to investor groups.
To each of the nine limited liability corporations tied together to ResponsibleOhio, the investors contributed $4 million in reference to securities offering filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the ResponsibleOhio officials, the expected cost to get their constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot and passed by a majority of voters in November is more than $20 million.
Aside from ResponsibleOhio's plan, there are also several proposals that are in progress regarding the legalization of marijuana in Ohio.
The proposed constitutional amendment by ResponsibleOhio encompasses a legal marijuana industry operated exclusively by marijuana grown at 10 sites, which would be owned and operated only by the investor groups. According to Cleveland.com, the organization has a number of investors which include basketball all-star Oscar Robertson, Frostee Rucker-former Browns player, and fashion designer Nanette Lepore. The organization has also promised that they will reveal more of their investors in the coming months.
Before the end of January this year, the ten-state registered limited liability corporations had contributed $1.7 million to ResponsibleOhio's political action committee as well. Most of the expenses of the organization go to political consulting from The Strategy Network which is ran by ResponsibleOhio executive director Ian James and a couple of attorneys. From there, the organization had spent almost $1.3 million.
It is not illegal to funnel campaign contributions through LLCs, however, it contributes to another layer of mystery to a plan that is criticized for its secrecy.
Jon Allison of Drug Free Action Alliance said that the almost complete lack of transparency that they have seen from the group makes it hard to comment intelligently on whatever they are trying to pursue in the particular action. "When they could come out and explain to the public exactly what they intend to do with these proposed sites and who's going to be involved, they choose instead not to do that." he added.
Dayton Daily News reported that if the Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine approved the proposal and considered one issue by the Ohio Ballot Board, then ResponsibleOhio must be able to collect more than 305,591 signatures from Ohio voters by July 1 in order to out the issue on the November ballot.
