COLUMBUS — Gov. John Kasich’s pen today signed a bill to make Ohio the 26th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

In 90 days, when the law takes effect, patients suffering from certain qualifying medical conditions will be allowed to travel to other states like Michigan where cannabis is already legal and bring it back here for medical use consistent with Ohio’s law.

That means using it in edible, oil, vapor, patch, tincture, and plant matter form. Smoking and home-growing of pot remains illegal.

It could still be as long as two years before Ohio has its own infrastructure in place to grow, process, test, and sell various strands of medical pot.

Mr. Kasich’s office announced the bill’s signing, along with other measures, without comment.

State Rep. Tim Brown (R., Bowling Green), who served on a special House committee on the subject, counted himself among the skeptical when this conversation began.

“I had images in my head of California, where their system is not really about medicinal dispensing but is quasi-blanket legalization where someone can grab their back, walk into a strip mall doctor’s office, walk out with a prescription, go next door, and leave with a bag of marijuana,” he said. “I don’t believe Ohioans want or are ready for that.”

But he is now convinced that Ohio’s bill has enough “guardrails,” including prohibitions on smoking and home-growing, to prevent that.

“I listened to Ohioans who talked very thoroughly and methodically about their realization that they or someone they love benefited from some form of medical marijuana,” Mr. Brown said. “We heard from people with chronic pain and people who had sons and daughters who had numerous seizures a day. They were able to reduce those seizures dramatically by giving their sons or daughters a pill, oil, or a patch.”

Twenty-five other states, most recently Georgia in April, had already adopted some system of medical marijuana. With Ohio joining the club, medical marijuana is now legal in more states than not. But pot is still classified by the federal government as a dangerous drug with no medical value.

The bill — sponsored by Rep. Stephen Huffman (R., Tipp City), a physician — narrowly passed the Senate 18-15 but cleared the House by a wider bipartisan margin of 67-29.

Rep. Robert Sprague (R., Findlay), a leader in the state’s legislative attempts to counter narcotic painkiller and heroin addiction, cast one of three negative legislative votes from northwest Ohio. He was concerned that chronic pain is one of the conditions that could legally qualify someone for medical marijuana.

“I don’t want to create another opioid epidemic,” he said. “It’s important for people to realize that in some areas of the state alcohol is the number one reason for admittance [to addiction treatment]. In southeast Ohio it’s opioids. In Cincinnati, it’s marijuana.

“If we use it as medicine and push it through the medical system, will we have the same effect as with narcotics?” Mr. Sprague asked. “I’d like to see us look at and learn from the prescription drug pill and heroin epidemic.”

The law will take effect in early September, but it has a broad deadline of two years before a state-run or licensed system of growing facilities, testing labs, physician certification, patient registration, processors, and retail dispensaries must be operational.

The rules for the growers must be written within eight months of the bill’s effective date, which translates into May. The rules for the other elements must be in place within a year, by September 2017.

But in the meantime, starting with the bill’s effective date, patients with one of 21 debilitating diseases or conditions contained in the law will be able to go to Michigan or some other state that already has a medical marijuana system and legally obtain pot to bring back to Ohio.

If arrested for possession or use in Ohio, such a patient could invoke an “affirmative defense” before a police officer, prosecutor, or judge to avoid criminal prosecution until the day arrives that he can obtain an official registration card from the state.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

First Published June 8, 2016, 10:01 p.m.