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 Over the last few years, state legislatures and voters in the United
States have been much more receptive to making marijuana legal for
medical purposes, and to a lesser extent, recreational use.
The Ohio legislature approved the measure in May.
Some 24 states and Washington D.C. currently allow some type of
medical marijuana use, and just a handful of states allow its
recreational use. It remains illegal on the federal level.
Kasich, who earlier this year dropped out of the U.S. presidential
race, signed the bill but provided no statement on Wednesday.
The Ohio legislation only allows patients with specific medical
conditions to use an oil, edible, tincture or vapor form of
marijuana prescribed by a physician licensed in the state, starting
in 2017.
Medical marijuana users would not be allowed to smoke or grow their
own marijuana under the measure, which also would create a
commission responsible for regulating and licensing of all
operations of the drug.
The measure was fast-tracked to head off a possible less-restrictive
medical marijuana ballot initiative in November. Ohioans for Medical
Marijuana suspended their campaign for the ballot measure late last
month, saying that while the lawmakers' bill had its shortcomings,
it was "a moderately good piece of legislation."
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Last November, Ohio voters soundly rejected a measure that would
have made it the first U.S. Midwestern state to legalize the
recreational use of marijuana. The proposal was criticized for
allowing the main backers of the proposal cartel-like powers over
the industry in the state for several years.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco and Kim Palmer in
Destin, Fla.; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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