Just who in the heck is Rick Kirk?
  If Issue 3 indeed becomes law, and you reside in Franklin County and a marijuana user, Kirk is going to be growing your legal green, selling you your legal green, and taking your monetary green.
  Kirk is one of the 20 primary investors aligned with ResponsibleOhio, the “AstroTurf” effort behind Issue 3. The Columbus-based strategy group has said it will spend at least $20 million to get the investor-backed constitutional amendment passed.
  After getting injured while trying to make the Dallas Cowboys, Kirk embarked on a career in construction and eventually founded Hallmark Campus Communities, now headquartered in the Empire Building at 150 E. Broad Street. He’s the company’s CEO and also ResponsibleOhio’s lead investor for the Franklin County potentially massive indoor grow site planned for Grove City on Seeds Road (of all places), and just off I-71.
  According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Kirk initially paid $4 million to become Franklin County’s future marijuana Kingpin. A pittance compared to what his investment could eventually return.
  Kirk obviously is already extremely well-off. Hallmark Campus Communities develops and manages high-end off-campus student housing at most of Ohio’s largest universities.
  Every parent who sends their kid off to college knows how pricey off-campus housing is, but Kirk’s $4 million gamble on Issue 3 could easily propel him into upper echelon of Central Ohio’s top earners.
  And while estimates are all over the map, ResponsibleOhio’s prospectus or formal pitch to investors states the annual marijuana sales for Ohio could be $1-billion plus. The state, says ResponsibleOhio, is expected to reap close to $550 million in taxes a year. Thus $450 million annually is the potential after-tax revenue for the 20 investors and the 1,100 or so proposed dispensaries.
  The Free Press tried to reach Kirk several times for feedback. And some obvious and simple questions are: What is your true motivation? Do you believe in the healing powers of medicinal marijuana? And, last but certainly not least, are you a user yourself?
  But Kirk never returned repeated phone calls. Perhaps a fore-bearer of the customer service local marijuana users can expect. However, Kirk does have a canned statement on a ResponsibleOhio website.
  “As an Ohio businessman and taxpayer,” said Kirk, “I have watched Ohio spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ineffective marijuana laws. ResponsibleOhio promotes the right public policy on personal, adult use of marijuana and medical marijuana, while also giving law enforcement the resources and tools they need to fight the real threats to our communities.”
  If Issue 3 becomes law, Kirk is going to be one of the few big-time winners. But looking in from the outside are true marijuana activists who for months have criticized and bemoaned the issue calling it an “oligopoly,” among other things.
  However, most of these same activists agree Ohio legalization will create far more winners than losers.
  “The winners with Issue 3 are the hundreds of thousands of adult marijuana consumers who will no longer be criminals,” says Russ Bellville, national radio personality for 420RADIO.org. “The losers are the police, local governments, drug rehabs, drug testers, prison guards and others who’ve made easy money on fines, arrests, asset seizures and court-mandated clientele who happen to choose a safer alternative to alcohol.”
  ResponsibleOhio says also losing out will be international drug dealers, even though thriving black markets still exist in legalized states. But a manager from Columbus’s most prominent hydroponics store, Indoor Gardens, says mid-level home growers who sell to family and friends are also on edge. Their years of making illegal sales that probably paid for their own stash could come to end with the advent of the neighborhood recreational dispensary.
  “For the guys that have been growing for years, whether right or wrong, and making a living at it, this does not help them,” said the manager who refused to offer his name for publication. “But it does help the soccer moms who are growing a couple of plants in their basement.”
  Real estate developers such as Kirk are not the only deep-pocketed opportunists who have positioned themselves to cash in on potential legalization.
  Ohio’s own Scots Miracle-Gro earlier this year purchased the Californian-based General Hydroponics for $130 million, the lawn-care company’s largest acquisition since the 1990s. It is strange bedfellows considering Scots has mostly contributed to Republican candidates and even publicly spoke-out against gay marriage. But Scots isn’t shy about their desire to make huge green off leafy green: General Hydroponics is a major international supplier of nutrients for indoor marijuana growers.
  Ohio NORML’s director Brandy Scheaffer told The Free Press that only 40 percent of her membership supports Issue 3. And like many cannabis activists she believes ResponsibleOhio has “taken it out of the hands of the people of Ohio, and put it into the hands of a few.” Ohio NORML is not against ResponsibleOhio, but they are not taking a position on Issue 3 either.
  Nevertheless, Scheaffer is urging all Ohio marijuana users to vote with something that is oh-so vital.
  “I think a lot of what is being proposed is crap,” she says. “However, we have a lot of medical marijuana patients in Ohio. Over 20,000 studies show that marijuana helps with cancer, MS, and PTSD. If you think this is going to help them, then vote with your heart.”