And talk about what's happening in Columbus with abortion, also with marijuana and more.
And the man in charge of the House of Representatives for the last quarter
of a century. He's been a Senator, a representative. He's hanging up
his spurs. About a year from now is Bill Sites of Western Hills in
Green Township. Bill Sites, Welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And
first of all, before we talk about abortion and marijuana and getting drunk,
I want to talk about Joe Burrow. What was your sense yesterday when Joe
Burrow wasn't able to play? Oh, hell was breaking loose? What did
Bill Sites go through? Well, well, you know, my heart sank
when I saw him go out, and I actually turned it off at halftime
when we're down twenty one to ten, I said, well, we've been
bangalized again, born under a bad time, and I just hope Joe was
able to recover quickly because we need him. We've got a real narrow path
to get to the playoffs. And this from a team that every buddy was
talking about as a Super Bowl contender two months ago. So it was really
kind of a shame. And I hope he gets better in a big hurry.
I don't care if it's Kajana Carter or any of the any Bengal players
in the past. Simply cook all the way back to Greg Cook, Greg
Cook, who I listened him about. A week ago Matt Reese put him
on about an interview between him and Bob Trumpy. Great Cook, the greatest
quarterback of all time, injures his shoulder. From that point on, I
just feel like we're in a portallet and people keep sitting down. That's what
I feel like, and no matter what happens, and the glory is there.
And I put out a month ago as Joe Burrow Bengalized, and the
answer might be yes, But I say, keep hope alive. Let's go
back into your Bailey Wick. Marijuana smoking is something that I voted in favor
of that assuming that the legislature would actually change it around the edges. And
the more I get into it, the more I know there must be significant
changes. But keep the will of the people. Can you tell the American
people what the House of Representatives is going to do with marijuana? We need
to do be according to Tony Bender, sure, I mean, look,
the people voted to legalize a recreational marijuana. They did that through something called
an initiated statute. That statute becomes part of the Ohio Revised Code, just
like all the other laws that we do as a legislature, and we call
it the Revised Code for a reason, it can be revised. We are
not, I don't think, going to invalidate the statute or repeal it.
The voters have spoken clearly. However, there's probably at least five issues that
need to be grappled with as we move forward that we're in this long statute
that I think need to be corrected, starting with the idea that it permits
folks to grow marijuana at home without paying tax, without being inspected, without
assurance that the product is tore. Now they say, well, that's just
for personal use. Well, let's talk about that one plant I'm told produces
one hundred and fifty joints. You're allowed twelve plants a husband and wife in
your home. One hundred and fifty times twelve is one eight hundred joints,
and you get four cops a year out of marijuana. You can raise your
twelve plants and basically a quarter, So eighteen hundred times four is seven thousand,
two hundred joints. Now, who needs seven thousand, two hundred joints
for your own personal use? Untack? And what worries me is that it
will be pervaded on the black market and risks being laced with monkey dust or
fentanyl or something else that happens. And so I really think we need to
sharply restrict the homegrower provisions of this statue Number one. Number two, the
tax rate it will be when you buy it legally through a dispensary, you'll
pay sales tax, and you will pay a ten percent excise tax on top
of the sale tax. Is that enough? Some people say no, we
should have a higher excise tax. I'm sort of indifferent about that, because
if the tax is too high, people will continue to just patronize the black
market, and that's what we do not want them to do. But that's
an issue. The use of the funds that we raise through the tax is
another good question. Some of the proposed uses are fine for like mental health
and addiction services, but a big chunk of it is for some vague and
ambiguous social equity program for disadvantaged people, and nobody knows quite what that is.
But many of us, on all sides of the aisle, believe we
could come up with a more pressing need to fund than that police training,
be it jail construction, be it all kinds of great ideas for what we
might do with the money other than that. So that's an issue. Then
we have this crazy issue in the statute that the voters voted for. They
voted for the THC content of recreational marijuana, that's the active ingredient, as
you know in pot, to be higher than what we allow for the medical
marijuana program that we've had for the last six or seven years. And it
seems to me that's precisely backwards. The people that are really sick, racked
with pain, have cancer, et cetera, they should get the higher dosage
of the active ingredient than the stone as sitting around on the weekend smoking a
joint. So I think that needs attention to at least equalize the THC contents
as between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. Oh, there's that, And then
finally bill the whole question of should we really allow marijuana to be sold to
be smoked. I mean, we've had a fifty year war on cigarette smoking,
pipe smoking, cigars, smoking, Do we really want people smoking it
when we've been saying that smoking is harmful to your health. We can do
it through vape, we can do it through edimals, we can do it
through oils, we can do it through tinctures. All of that is how
we do it in the medical program. And it seems to me that's a
safer way to ingest marijuana than by smoking it. So those are some of
the issues that we may, as you say, tinker around the edges,
but we don't need to do it immediately. And why is that. You're
gonna tell me, Well, the bill becomes effective December seventh, a day
that we'll live an infamy. Yeah, it does become effective on December seventh,
but it will be at least six months to twelve months before they can
stand up the whole recreational marijuana program for the dispensaries. We'll start selling it,
before the inspections are made, before the purity tests are run, before
the rules are written. All of that will take six months to twelve months,
So that the only two things that will happen on December seventh are Number
One, people can start their home growth plant, the little seeds in the
ground. And number two, the possession of two and a half ounces of
pot or left will be legal. Currently that's a minor misdemeanor, but it
will become outright legal on December seventh. So that's the only things that will
really happen on December seventh. And I believe we should take our time and
look at these other issues that I've mentioned to you and do have some hearings
and find out what the right answer is rather than rush something to judgment that
may not be correct. That's my view. Representative Bill Sitz, you're making
a lot of sense, which is unfortunate. Let's kind of break down where
it is. When you talk about THC higher for medical pot, why would
someone buy marijuana medically in the state of Ohio and this thing's operational when you
get recreational, why would somebody? Doesn't this eliminate completely medical marijuana because why
get your card and go through the process when you can get it recreationally anyway.
Yeah, it is certainly going to deal a blow to the existing medical
marijuana program, but there is some talk about adjusting tax rates, adjusting THC
content to let medical marijuana still have a space in the overall market by giving
medical marijuana some competitive advantages compared to recreational marijuana. That there is some talk
about that, So that's one of the things that needs to be looked at.
Frankly, I voted for medical marijuana back when we did it. That's
seven years ago, and I was working very assiduously on a great bill that
was going to strengthen our medical marijuana program Senate Bill nine, pending over in
the set as we speak. But you're right. When people can get the
recreational marijuana without getting any kind of doctor's recommendation, my guess is a lot
of them are going to go that route. I think that's true. Well,
you got to saddle up next to Governor Mike Dewan. I had them
on a week ago and he said, like December seventh, we got to
get this done by So I'm sure you your adults can work that out.
As far as smoking or edibles, I'm told by the stoners at EBN that
part of the process of smoking pot is holding it in your hand, sucking
it in, rolling around your nose and your lungs, blowing it back out.
That it's the glory of smoking marijuana. They enjoy that more than edibles.
Can you comment on that the glories of the stoners at EBN Well,
as a farmer cigarette smoker, you know, I quit smoking after fifty years
on August the second of this year. And that's the same argument that people
make about why they like cigarettes. Something to do with your hands. We
like the smoke, we like the anail it. That's like to breathe it
in it out. You've got a argument, you know, now, twenty
four states haven why don't you rely upon what the other states are doing?
That makes sense? You know, a great constitutional lawyer told me that these
states are laboratories and democracy and what works in Minnesota. You can look at
Minnesota, which is a terrible place to live, I might end, but
nonetheless and say, okay, and take the best of the other twenty four
states. How about that idea? Well, that's that's a good idea.
And I will say that some of those ideas are already incorporated in what we
voted on, because Michigan and Colorado, to name just two, have gone
completely overboard in allowing so many dispensaries on every street corner. Almost it's too
many dispensaries. We're going to have in Ohio. We're going to have a
restricted number of dispensaries. It's still going to be plenty of dispensaries. I
believe the number is something like three hundred dispensaries statewide, So it's not like
you'll have to drive fifty miles to find one. Still, in all you
don't necessarily want this to be on every single street corner. Localities will still
be able to say they don't want a dispensary in their community. They'll still
be able to do that. That's a good change. As I say,
it will be inspected, it will be grown in Ohio, it will be
inspected in Ohio, it will be tested for purity in Ohio. Those are
all good attributes of a good marijuana program, be it medical or recreational,
and we're going to adhere to that. I just want to be sure that
when the customer gets recreational pot in Ohio, they know that it's been tested
and it's not adulterated. Now, we don't let we don't let people make
bathtub gin for God's sake, all right, you have to buy that at
the state liquor store. Right. A lot of Kentucky and so Tony bender
tells me that bathtub gin is a big item in Boone County. But I
say, you live in Ohio, don't live in Kentucky. You can't make
your own boot. No. No. In the name of this group that
put issue two on the palate, it was called the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana
like Alcohol. There you go, Okay, regulate marijuana like alcohol. We
don't let people make fast up jim because you know, back in the day
when they did, they sold it and a lot of people went blind drinking
that stuff. So we want to make sure the product is safe. We
want to make sure the product is not adulterated with other drugs that are very,
very much more serious than POTT. I know. That's my principal goal.
Now, lastly, this will work out. We have a state representative
named Gross in Butler County, the home of our mutual good friend Richard K.
Jones. You know, I sleep with an Appella judge, and she
has floated the idea of having the legislature take away the court system in the
state of Ohio so that the judges cannot rule on constitutionality. Do you stand
with Gross or do you oppose Gross? Well, Jennifer growth is a very
ardent right to life person, but she's not a lawyer, and the proposal
that she floated last week is not being taken seriously by anybody because it would
upend the principle of judicial review, which has been around since Chief Justice John
Marshall first announced it in Marbury versus Madison in eighteen o three. So,
you know, some things you just cannot do. I understand why Jennifer is
upset about Issue one and the fact that it passed. I understand that a
lot of right to like people are upset by that, But you don't just
throw out the baby with the bathwater. We are going to have to respect
the will of the voters on that question, at least for a time,
and then we'll all have to sit back and see how far do the pro
aborts want to take their new constitutional right. Are they going to challenge our
existing laws on parental notification, on making the woman get an ultrasound so that
she can see at the baby, or the rules about informed consent to an
abortion, the rules that require fetal remains to be appropriately interred, the waiting
periods that are involved before you can get an abortion, and whether the state
will be able to continue its policy of not paying for abortion if the Left
tries to invalidate those things because it's an interference or a burden on the abortion
right. At some point the public might say, well, gee, maybe
Issue one did go too far way beyond row like many of us were saying
it did so. But that's way down the road. Bill, I don't
see that happening anytime in twenty twenty four. I'm not going to say when,
if ever, we might revisit that question constitutionally, but it certainly won't
be soon. Well, sadly, we got the government we deserve and that
concerns me greatly. State Representative Bill Sides, thanks for setting Jennifer Grossed straight.
We got homegrown use of tax dollars, THC content smoked her edibles.
Many issues, resolve them all. And Bill Sitz, once again, you
have another further comment to make. No, No, I was gonna say,
there's plenty of There's always plenty of stuff to do up in Columbus.
I bet for people that really want to roll up their sleeves and get into
the nitty gritty details. And that's what I've been doing for a long time.
And the stoners tell me. They like to smoke it, they like
to roll it, they like to look at it, they like to light
it, they like to smell. That's what the stoners tell me, So
kind of keep that whatever it is. The price of recreational has got to
be close to the price of the black market. Otherwise people are going to
stay in the black market. And just keep that in mind. You're right,
and we got to make sure that kids cannot get access by this.
That's another confine. The Governor's raise. Nothing in this statute to allow kids
to do it. Oh that's good, but there may be other restrictions on
how it's advertised that we might look at to be sure that we're not enticing
children into a life of marijuana inhalation and some sort of cheech and chong scene
in the back of a car. We don't want that. We don't want
that, all right, great great movie. Bill Sites once again, thank
you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. Thank you, Bill, Thank
Bill. Let's continue, man, and that guy's leaving office in about a
year. We're going to miss him greatly. I understand, Jennifer Gross well
intended, but damn it, it's illegal. But don't don't tell a lawmaker
about the law. Let's continue with more. Bill Cunningham, News Radio,
seven hundred l. There are a few things more wonderful in life than intimacy.
But when a rectile dysfunction harms intimacy, it can