[[{“value”:”Feb 21, 2025
Reporter
dskolnick@vindy.com
A proposal to take away the funding revenue stream for communities with adult recreational marijuana dispensaries located there was pulled from a bill, but the state Legislature is still expected to move ahead with other major changes to the law.
Also, just because the funding for communities that have marijuana dispensaries is out of a Senate bill doesn’t mean the idea is dead.
Removing funding from communities with marijuana dispensaries raised numerous objections from officials in those localities. Struthers City Council recently voted to oppose the proposed funding reallocation and Austintown Trustee Robert Santos has spoken against it.
Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, wants to increase the tax rate on recreational marijuana from 10% to 20% while state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, introduced Senate Bill 56 that would increase the rate to 15%.
The proceeds from the current tax on recreational marijuana has 36% of it going to the host community cannabis fund – which is where the communities with dispensaries get their revenue.
Local communities with marijuana dispensaries include Youngstown, Warren, Hubbard, Struthers and Niles.
Recreational marijuana sales exceed $330 million since it went on the market Aug. 6. So that’s more than $33 million in taxes with nearly $12 million going to local communities.
The proposals from DeWine and Huffman want to take all of the revenue and move it to the state’s general fund.
During an interview last week, I asked DeWine about his proposal.
He said, “How the money is spent seems to me is somewhat goofy and is not good public policy. So what I’ve proposed and what the Senate has a bill about was to say, ‘We’ll keep the legislation and keep a lot of parts of this, but how the money gets spent, we have a fiduciary obligation to make sure this money is spent in a proper way.’”
The Ohio Senate General Government Committee on Tuesday adopted a substitute bill that eliminated the tax change provision.
The committee will vote next week on the substitute bill and it will be fast-tracked in the Senate, with a vote also possible next week.
It also has to get through the House and, if changes are made, reconciled between the two chambers and signed by DeWine.
While the tax rate issue was pulled in committee, there is a lot of talk that it could be a significant part of discussions on the state budget.
DeWine’s proposed budget, which will see major changes when finally approved by legislators, calls for an even higher tax and for the local money to go to the state.
If there’s money to be had, the state has shown it prefers to have it rather than local governments.
DeWine’s proposal would use 25% of the increased tax for county jail construction and renovation with smaller percentages for police training, the 988 crisis hotline, substance use education and drivers education in schools.
DeWine said the state can use the funding “to more target the need for this marijuana money instead of what the current law does, which creates a lottery for who gets the money.”
While Ohio voters approved legalizing adult recreational marijuana with 57% support in November 2023, it was a citizen initiative and not a constitutional amendment. That gives state lawmakers the authority to change what voters approved. It is unlike a constitutional amendment, which requires another constitutional amendment to change its language.
Republicans, who have supermajorities in the Legislature and hold every statewide executive branch office, are working to make significant changes to the recreational marijuana law.
Huffman’s bill would lower the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in recreational marijuana from 90% to 70%, limit home-grown plants from 12 to six, require marijuana to be transported only in the trunk of a car when traveling, permit its use in only private residences, impose a mandatory three-day jail sentence on passengers in vehicles caught smoking marijuana, and limit the number of recreational marijuana dispensaries to 350. There are currently 134 – and growing – in Ohio.
Huffman said: “This bill is about government efficiency, consumer and child safety, and maintaining access to voter-approved adult-use marijuana.”
Along with several other provisions. DeWine said he supports a reduction in THC levels.
He said: “There’s nowhere that I know that there’s such a gap between what the public believes about something and what the real facts are. The facts are marijuana is two, three, four times more potent than it was in the ’60s and ’70s. It’s dramatically more potent.”
Huffman’s bill would also not permit outdoor smoking or vaping of marijuana, which DeWine also supports.
When I mentioned to DeWine that Ohio hadn’t turned into Colorado and people weren’t getting high in the streets, the governor strongly disagreed.
He said: “There are many times that I’ve experienced in Ohio and outside Ohio since this has passed where you’re on the street, you have your grandson or your granddaughter and all they can do is smell the marijuana. I think it is a problem that needs to be resolved.”
Skolnick covers politics for the The Vindicator and the Tribune Chronicle.
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“}]] A proposal to take away the funding revenue stream for communities with adult recreational marijuana dispensaries located there was pulled from a bill, but the state Legislature is still expected to move ahead with other major changes to the law. Also, just because the funding for communities that have marijuana dispensaries is out of a Read More
