A proposal to legalize Ohio medical marijuana has squeaked through a critical Senate panel over opposition of some Republicans and Democrats.

The Senate Government Oversight & Reform Committee’s 7-to-5 vote Wednesday sets the stage for probable passage of the bill out of both legislative chambers by the end of the day. State lawmakers are rushing the bill out before their summer recess as ammunition against a well-funded medical marijuana issue working its way to fall ballots.

The final bill bars patients from smoking or growing marijuana for medical use, but allows its use in vapor form for certain chronic health conditions.

The lawmaker behind the plan to have a pharmacist in every dispensary says it's the most responsible way to oversee marijuana as medicine.

A legislative proposal to regulate medical marijuana through Ohio’s pharmacy board was scrapped Tuesday over concerns the rare setup nationally would create an undue burden on the state.

Republican Sen. David Burke, a Marysville pharmacist behind the idea, called the arrangement the most responsible way to oversee marijuana as medicine. He said changes introduced in the Senate Government Oversight Committee on Tuesday were needed to strike a workable compromise.

Earlier this month, Mark Kleiman – the doyen of public health academia – shared his Transatlantic Lessons, a stark warning of the potential perils of over commercialising cannabis.  Today, we have republished what is, essentially, a bold response to Kleiman’s concerns from Troy Dayton, Co-Founder of The Arcview Group with the following ‘profit-positive’ approach to the coming commercial cannabis wave.

Nic Balzer is using his savings to start a marijuana-related business – before the drug is even legalized in Ohio.

It’s a risk Balzer and partner Robert Ryan started taking on last year, prior to a failed ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

On April 17, Pennsylvania became the latest state to pass medical marijuana legislation, which will take effect this month. And recently Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a plan to permit medical marijuana in the state.

On April 17, Pennsylvania became the latest state to pass medical marijuana legislation, which will take effect this month. And recently Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a plan to permit medical marijuana in the state.

A poll released Wednesday shows 90 percent of Ohio’s registered voters support the idea of legal marijuana for medical use, coming a day after the state House took a big step in that direction.

The poll also showed that the race for the U.S. Senate seat between Republican incumbent Sen. Rob Portman and Democratic former Gov. Ted Strickland remains a dead heat.

Support in the Quinnipiac Poll dropped off to 52 percent when it comes to recreational use of pot, in line with numbers seen last year before Ohio voters soundly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized cannabis for recreational, medical, and commercial use.

The Ohio House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana bill and the next morning, a Quinnipiac University poll showed 9 in 10 Ohioans support marijuana as medicine.

Marijuana has momentum, and the House addressed some of the issues legislators have had with legalization, including whether medical marijuana could be smoked (no) and if it could be grown by sick patients (no).

In a first for Ohio legislators, House lawmakers passed a plan to legalize medical marijuana after a lengthy debate and hand wringing on both sides of the aisle.

After years of opposing plans to legalize marijuana, medicinal or otherwise, House lawmakers passed a plan 71-26 Tuesday. Members of GOP-controlled House – under pressure from two medical marijuana efforts shooting for the November ballot – talked seriously and passionately about medical marijuana for the first time.

Six states that allow marijuana use legal tests to determine driving while impaired by the drug that have no scientific basis, according to a study by the nation's largest automobile club that calls for scrapping those laws.

The study commissioned by AAA's safety foundation said it's not possible to set a blood-test threshold for THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, that can reliably determine impairment.

Yet the laws in five of the six states automatically presume a driver guilty if that person tests higher than the limit, and not guilty if it's lower.

As a result, drivers who are unsafe may be going free while others may be wrongly convicted, the foundation said.