OSA is the only student-led organization in the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the group that engineered Issue 1. OSA began collecting the first signatures to petition for the amendment on Nov. 2, 2017.

“Issue 1 takes money out of the prisons, out of the business of locking people up, and puts it back into restoring people,” said Afia Chrappah, a fourth-year in social work and OSA volunteer. “The premise of Issue 1 is, ‘You’re addicted to drugs, we are not going to incarcerate you. We are going to help you get your life back on track.’”

It has been “exhausting work to be constantly responding” to different crises, O’Donnell said, and the group seemed to hit a low at the start of 2017. However, he said the organization made up for it with a strong effort pushing Issue 1 onto the ballot in 2018.

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