Editor's note: The complete audio of Keith Faber's address to the Akron Press Club has been added to this story. So has a link to the address on March 6 by his likely fall opponent, Zack Space.
State auditor candidate criticized Ohio鈥檚 medical marijuana roll-out today at the Akron Press Club.
Faber, the former Ohio Senate president, said he was no fan of the idea of legalizing medical marijuana when lawmakers OK鈥檇 it in 2016. But he says he鈥檚 grown more troubled by a series of mistakes the Ohio Department of Commerce acknowledges it has made, for the 24 cultivation sites allowed by the law.
鈥淣ow the problem you鈥檝e got is once you鈥檝e made awards and people start reliance on those awards, what do you do? Go back and say, 鈥楬ey, we were just kidding. By the way I know you鈥檝e broken ground and you鈥檙e starting to build your facilities and you鈥檙e trying to get up and running because you鈥檝e got a very narrow time frame to do that. Just kidding. We鈥檙e going to reallocate.鈥� It鈥檚 the problem with not having the system in place to do it right the first time.鈥�
Faber hopes to succeed fellow Republican Auditor Dave Yost, who has called for a pause in the medical marijuana program until the problems are fixed.
Faber is holding out little hope for the state to adopt stricter gun-control measures.
鈥淚鈥檓 not going to sit here and tell you that I think we ought to regulate guns or that we can do things on the gun side. Because the answer to me is that we have a lot of guns in our society. I don鈥檛 think you're ever going to get rid of all of them. I think you need to be careful about the people who have access to guns. And candidly, I just don鈥檛 think we鈥檙e going to fix that problem by saying this gun looks like it鈥檚 meaner than that gun.鈥�
Faber said after the l in 2012, Ohio adopted school safety measures, including locked doors and having armed school security officers. He also endorsed a proposal made by Attorney General Mike DeWine this week to have a mental health officer in every school in Ohio.
Faber is likely to be opposed in the fall by Democrat Zack Space, a former congressman from the 18th District covering primarily and Appalachian region of Ohio. to his March 6, 2018 appearance.
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