Mike DeWine's trolling Ohio with deceptive, dangerous anti-abortion ad

From grass to grass

Re "Can Issue 2 save the struggling marijuana industry?" on Oct. 22: Scotts Miracle-Gro has been selling lawn products for years. Now, it’s selling grass.

CEO Jim Hagedorn stands defiantly, making front page headlines regarding Scotts marijuana business, saying, “So many people have been destroyed in this business.” Let’s put that sentence in a petri dish.

So many people have been destroyed by recreational marijuana use for years.

Most addicts will tell you their first drug of choice was marijuana, which lead to using other drugs, loss of jobs, families, lives.

Law enforcement knows legalizing marijuana will be horrible. Police officers already have difficult jobs, but who cares? Hagedorn and others are not making the money they expected when going into the drug business.

In this business. Key word: business.

Marijuana is a drug that clouds the thinking and blurs the vision. Why would anyone support that?

If marijuana becomes legal, we can never go back to making it illegal. Legalizing marijuana will blur the vision of Ohioans.

Carmen Sauer, Columbus

DeWine is blowing smoke

Who is Gov. Mike DeWine kidding with his concern-trolling and deceptive TV ad against Issue 1, the Reproductive Freedom Amendment?

So, he has pored over the amendment language and determined after careful analysis that it “goes too far?”

This from the official who signed a six-week abortion ban into law with no exceptions.

That’s totally disingenuous—not to mention the red herrings of “parental rights” and “partial birth abortions,” issues which are not affected by the amendment but are raised by Gov. DeWine and bedfellows to blow smoke.

Save that for Issue 2, governor.

Haven’t we done the experiment of criminalizing abortion before, with totally predictable outcomes? Prior to the 1973 Roe decision, hospitals in major cities faced an influx of patients suffering the effects of botched abortion measures: chemical burns, perforations, and severe infections. In many cases by the time such patients were admitted their infections had progressed into irreversible and fatal septic shock.

For example, Chicago’s Cook County Hospital had such a 40-bed “septic abortion ward” in the early 1970s.

If the governor is successful in defeating the Reproductive Freedom Amendment, obliging Ohio hospitals to establish such grimly needed facilities once again, fitting signage over the entrances would read “The Gov. Mike DeWine Septic Abortion Ward.”

Likewise, some could be named crediting Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Attorney General Dave Yost for their yeoman service in re-criminalizing abortion in the state.

Joe Knapp, Columbus

Stay safe this Halloween

Halloween is a time for fun and celebration, but it's also the most dangerous day of the year for child pedestrians.

Young pedestrians are more than twice as likely to die on Halloween compared to any other day of the year.

Simple safety measures to consider when trick or treating include carrying flashlights to increase visibility, eliminating costumes that limit vision and crossing streets at designated crosswalks.

More: Here's when trick or treating will be held in Greater Columbus neighborhoods

As a pediatrician, I urge parents to be alert and cautious. Let’s help Columbus-area children stay safe this Halloween and keep them out of the emergency room.

Dr. Laura Shine, Columbus

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Marijuana clouds the mind. Why would anyone support making it legal?