Faith leaders believe Bellville cannabis will bring problems for local policing (VIDEO)

BELLVILLE — As a compromise with local clergy and law enforcement, Bellville Village Council decided last week to temporarily freeze any marijuana business startups from coming to the Village for six months. Outside the purview of the public, planning for a recreational marijuana dispensary had been in the works at the Interstate 71/ Ohio 97 interchange. Faith leaders are now trying to nip the proposal in the bud before the business has a chance to be approved.

Although the landowner of the proposed dispensary says he wants to provide cannabis for recreational purposes and as treatment for military veterans, research to date does not support cannabis as an effective treatment for Post-Tramautic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The drug can actually be harmful according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. Either way, several local veterans agree the dispensary will not be good for the community.

Pastor and veteran Chad Hayes disagrees with marijuana as a viable treatment. “They can say all they want about treatment for veterans, but we need to take the moral high ground: legalizing marijuana is a breach in national security. This drug is making us less vigilant as a people. In the big picture, this is a war on America and its culture, that is why they are trying to decriminalize all drugs. We cannot follow the Pied Piper down this path.”

Pastor Hayes served as a Marine and hosts at his church Reformers Unanimous, a Bible-based, addiction recovery program, designed to rescue and restore those in addictive behaviors. Hayes was also one of the clergy who presented a clergy correspondence signed by sixty-six faith leaders at Village Council January 9th. The correspondence called for a commercial ban on marijuana.

Bellville Pastor Matt O’Harra, who served in the National Guard, is also one of the clergy co-signers of the letter opposing a dispensary. “While there may be other additional medical benefits that we are not aware of, I have serious concerns over the recreational usage of this drug,” he says.

A systematic evidence-based review of more than 10,700 scientific studies conducted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine found verifiable benefits of marijuana for only two disorders, chronic pain and the nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy. Researchers found wide disparities between patient claims and physician-verified therapeutic benefits.

The cannabis company that wants to come to Bellville has more than thirty products. Standard Wellness sells products that include: cannabis-infused gummies, cannabis chocolate bars, cannabis caramel bars, discreet vaping products, and distillate syringes. The company has several strains of marijuana plants it derives its products from, including Sour Diesel, Death Star, Killer Queen and Durban Poison, which has THC content between 15-25%. In 2019, the company recalled one of its products due to contamination concerns. Three years later, Standard Wellness was sued by the State of Ohio for non-compliance to Ohio Pharmacy Board requirements.

Citizens who attended the January 9th Village Council meeting warned that not only will impressionable youth be negatively impacted by a marijuana dispensary, there will also be a need for more police officers to address unruly behavior associated with marijuana use. They warned recruitment and retention of police officers will plummet as police morale sours.

Bellville Mayor Teri Brenkus believes the dispensary can bring more tax revenue for law enforcement. “We have been struggling to pay our officers higher wages and increase our police department staffing,” she said. “We currently only have five full time officers for 24/7 coverage.”

Joining the other faith leaders is Bellville Pastor Mark Dettmer, who also serves as a police chaplain. “We regularly see individual liberties infringed when marijuana-users accidentally injure or kill people on the roadways, or when marijuana-users sometimes display violent and irrational behavior. Several years ago, it was heartbreaking when a Morrow County deputy was almost killed after neighbors had him investigate a marijuana plantation during a property dispute. We need to consider the dangerous working environment we are putting our law enforcement into.”

Richland County Sheriff Steve Sheldon wrote to Village Council that he stands firmly against recreational marijuana. METRICH Project Director Keith Porch also told Council in a letter he submitted that “You should not place revenue over the security and sanctity of the family.” He cited Colorado as a classic example of the failed policy of marijuana legalization.

During the January 9th meeting, Bellville Village Council approved an emergency draft resolution stating, “It is our community’s best interests to prevent unacceptable threats and risks to the health of our citizens, especially children, to prevent dangers in the workplace and unacceptable challenges and costs to employers, to prevent roadways from becoming more dangerous and to help prevent significant new, unfunded costs to Ohio’s public social services.”

Pastor Robert Kurtz , serves as chaplain with the Sheriff’s Department. Besides riding along with deputies on duty, his duties include counseling police officers and also families dealing with homicide and suicide. In a previous news story he commented, “There are many dangerous challenges that confront law enforcement officers in our streets today. I think the public forgets police officers are human beings too. Nationally, there were forty-five police officers from different racial backgrounds last year who were shot and killed in the line of duty.

“My observation is, with the legalization of so many illicit drugs, it is creating the atmosphere for violence and that is why we are seeing these combustible conditions.”

The Bottom Line:

The Bible says in Proverbs Chapter 1, “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, ‘How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?”

View video on the problem of marijuana produced by Prager U below (5 minutes)

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