Did marijuana group sabotage grassroots effort?

• ResponsibleOhio calls complaint "bogus"; says it's already collected more than 100,000 signatures

Medical marijuana advocates trying to put an initiative on the Nov. 5 ballot have accused the founders of the well-financed ResponsibleOhio of crippling the smaller, weaker competitor last year before launching their own effort to push for full legalization.

In an April 13 complaint to the Ohio Elections Commission, Ohio Rights Group said the people who went on to create ResponsibleOhio infiltrated the ORG to gain information and to dissuade potential financial donors. The complaint accuses Ian James and David Bruno of flying a false flag: promising help to ORG then using the knowledge gained to build their own group.

The complaint said Bruno used his childhood friendship with ORG Executive Director John Pardee to gain an advantage and that Bruno was taking consultant's fees from ORG while laying the foundation for ResponsibleOhio.

Lydia Bolander, spokeswoman for ResponsibleOhio, scoffed Tuesday at the accusations. She said the group's campaign has already collected more than 160,000 of the 306,000 signatures necessary to put the amendment on the ballot.

"This is a bogus complaint. In their filing, they describe their own campaign as crippled, and now they're blaming others – it's just sad," Bolander said. "ResponsibleOhio is excited to have an excellent team of campaign professionals working to pass the Marijuana Legalization Amendment this year. . . . We look forward to continuing this positive momentum in the coming months."

Chris Hughes, commission assistant at the Ohio Elections Commission, said Tuesday the agency has scheduled a May 21 hearing on the ORG complaint.

In a cover letter with the complaint, ORG Secretary Mary Jane Borden wrote, "The actions of these individuals have had a devastating impact on our ability to raise funds, retain volunteers and motivate staff, thereby crippling the advancement" of ORG's ballot initiative.

"This may have been a planned strategy by selected individuals intent on locking the wealthy into Ohio's emerging billion-dollar cannabis industry during its infancy through funding a statewide ballot initiative that carves their financial interests into the Ohio Constitution and permits them to exclusively profit from those interests in perpetuity with minimal government interference," Borden's letter said.

Formed in January 2013, the grassroots ORG has been collecting signatures for the Ohio Cannabis Rights Amendment, which would give sick and disabled Ohioans the right to use marijuana medicinally and allow Ohio farmers to grow hemp for industrial use.

The group collected 150,000 signatures to get the proposed constitutional amendment on the 2014 ballot, about 50 percent short of the required number. Last month, Pardee told The Enquirer that ORG had already recruited new volunteers, and the presence of the ResponsibleOhio initiative energized ORG to collect more signatures.

ResponsibleOhio, formed in June 2014, has pulled together a group of wealthy Ohioans, most recently Woody and Dudley Taft, Cincinnati developer David Bastos and Over-the-Rhine restaurateur Nick Lachey, to campaign for a constitutional amendment that establish a Marijuana Control Commission to fully legalize the drug.

That plan calls for 10 farms around the state to grow the crop and for other entrepreneurs to process and sell cannabis. Counties and municipalities would share in the tax money raised.

Activists with ORG and Ohioans to End Prohibition have been pushing back against the proposal as creating an agricultural monopoly. ResponsibleOhio proponents say the 10-farm structure is necessary for effective regulation and taxation.

In its complaint, ORG said Ian James came aboard in April 2012 to organize ORG's signature-gathering. David Bruno reconnected with John Pardee in October 2013 and sold ORG "on his experience as a professional fundraiser, political director with the Ohio Senate and specialist in demographic screening and targeting."

But even as ORG paid Bruno, he "made extensive trips across the state to visit activists and funders, allegedly including (ResponsibleOhio's) Oscar Robertson and Bobby George."

The complaint also said that in May 2014, ORG was courting Jim Hagedorn, president of Scotts Miracle-Gro in Marysville for a $1 million contribution. Hagedorn asked for more information. ORG officials later learned that when the additional information was provided, their names had been removed and substituted with the names of James, Bruno and Antoinette Wilson, the chief executive officer of Triumph Communications. That company was doing work for ORG. When ORG tried to follow up with Hagedorn, it got no response.

The complaint also said ORG paid Bruno $7,500 to build a database of petition signatures that was never completed. Another ORG worker, Lissa Satori, got $4,000 from the group in June 2014 as its director of special projects; two weeks later, she resigned and went to work for ResponsibleOhio.