WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Legal recreational marijuana went on sale in Ohio for the first time Tuesday — in large part because voters who are both red and blue saw just one color: green.
Weed sales have for decades been a sharply political and partisan issue in Ohio — with Republicans generally against it and Democrats generally in favor.
But at legal pot shops, buyers and sellers agreed that marijuana is one of the few issues that cuts straight across party lines.
“This is the voice of the people,” Nick Rassle, Ohio director for the weed distribution company Trulieve, told The Post in front of a wraparound line at the company shop in the Columbus suburb of Westerville
“It wasn’t Democrats or Republicans who did this. It was the people who wanted it and the people who went out and made it happen.”
The Buckeye State voted to legalize pot in a referendum last November after citizen action groups and industry advocates pushed to put it on the ballot.
Voters approved “Issue 2” by a big margin — with 57% voting yes.
For reference, former President Trump got 53% of the vote in Ohio in 2020, suggesting voters are more green than red.
“The local grassroots had to do it,” Rassle said.
“Nobody in Ohio has 20 or 30 stores. The most is maybe four or five. So it wasn’t some big government push or single lobbyist. It wasn’t liberals or conservatives. The people wanted this and the people got it.”
Customers began arriving at Trulieve around 6:30 a.m., where lines out the door and around the corner persisted into the afternoon.
Rassle says this location is already “pushing double” the number of customers he typically sees.
Ten percent of the revenue from all those purchases will go directly to the state of Ohio.
“That’s the part they want to hide from everyone. The money goes to schools and supports communities like in Colorado,” Cal, a 52-year-old sales manager, who lined up to buy legal pot, told The Post.
“[Politicians] kept trying to kill it or say the signatures weren’t right. But here we are.”
The legal marijuana movement — although it lagged neighbors like Michigan and Pennsylvania — is a big switch for the state. The national alcohol prohibition movement in the early 20th century was based just down the road from Trulieve at the current location of the public library.
Jack, a 24-year-old local pizza manager, thinks legalization is a better way for Ohio than prohibition, “I know I don’t want to go back there.”
