Nick Lachey might seem to be keeping a low profile, at least in terms of his role in show business, but that’s just because he’s found something just as lucrative, perhaps not moreso, than his entertainment career: growing marijuana. I’ll cut to the chase: Nick is from Cincinnati and on Tuesday, Ohio residents are going to vote on whether or not to legalize weed for the masses. If they do, Nick stands to make a pretty hefty sum of cash. How? Well, he owns one of the 10 mass growers of the stuff in the state, and if the law goes through, those 10 farms will have the sole rights to grow and distribute in Ohio.
From The Washington Post:
The owners of those farms? A random bunch, including Lachey, designer Nanette Lepore, NBA legend Oscar Robertson, NFL journeyman Frostee Rucker, a pair of President William Howard Taft’s great-great-grandnephews and twenty-some others — who, not coincidentally, are the same folks bankrolling the campaign, and stand to become very, very wealthy if the measure passes.
“They are creating a constitutionally mandated oligopoly,” argues Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. But the initiative’s organizers maintain that the novel arrangement is the only way to fund a successful legalization campaign in a far-from-liberal state.
Each ownership group was asked to put up an initial $4 million to underwrite the ballot campaign; it cost them an estimated $10 million more to buy land and get their farms up and running. Lachey’s piece of the action would be 29 acres just outside of Akron, which he would co-own with a couple of financial executives and a car dealership owner from Texas. Every one of the 1,100 state-regulated marijuana retail shops across Ohio will have no choice but to buy from his or one of the other nine farms.
It’s been claimed that in four years, each of those farms could be selling up to $1.1 billion worth of weed every year, which is certainly a nice chunk of cash, plenty of which could be pumped back into the state. I don’t smoke weed anymore because it makes me lazy as hell and I’m too much of a workaholic these days, but I definitely support the idea of government-regulated sales and standards, because it would likely up the quality of what you could get at lower prices and hopefully cancel out the stomped on shit you get from your neighbourhood dealer when you’re desperate enough to smoke sticks.
Here’s a statement from Lachey’s rep:
“Ohio is my home, and as a resident and local business owner I am proud to be part of a movement that has the potential to create jobs, reinvigorate the local economy and improve the safety of our communities. Passage of this proposal will result in much-needed economic development opportunities across Ohio, and update the state’s position on marijuana in a smart and safe way.”
This is hilarious, and Nick Lachey is much smarter than I ever gave him credit for.