Advocates from drug reform and civil liberties groups held an event Thursday to draw attention to bills that would significantly amend Ohio’s marijuana legalization law, passed by voters in 2023. Among other changes, the measures would restrict legal products, create a host of new criminal penalties and adjust how cannabis tax revenue is spent.
The webinar—hosted by NORML and featuring guests from the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and ACLU of Ohio—also addressed what Ohio residents can do to push back against the proposals, which speakers described as an effort by lawmakers to undo the will of voters.
“Lawmakers in Ohio had years to craft legislation to legalize the adult-use marijuana market,” said Paul Armentano, NORML’s deputy director. “They refused to do so, and they left that decision ultimately in the hands of the electorate. And it is a slap in the face to those voters—the 57 percent of Ohioans that voted for Issue 2—for lawmakers to come back and now play Monday morning quarterback.”
“This issue in Ohio has been one of NORML’s lead priorities this session,” Armentano said, “and trying to make sure that the will of the voters in Ohio—and in several other states—is in fact respected.”
So far, lawmakers have filed two bills aimed at rolling back the cannabis law: one that the state Senate passed last month—SB 56, from Sen. Steve Huffman (R)—and another recently introduced in the House, HB 160 from Rep. Brian Stewart (R).
While the Senate bill is seen as stricter in some ways—for example, it would cut in half the number of plants adults could grow under the law—both bills would set THC limits on marijuana products, weaken or eliminate equity provisions and set a 350-shop restriction on retail across the state.
Lawmakers could still introduce other measures, noted Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for ACLU of Ohio, and it’s also expected that a sweeping state budget bill could be used to make changes to the cannabis law. For example, an increased cannabis excise tax was introduced and later removed from the Senate bill, but an even steeper tax hike is now in the governor’s budget proposal.
Daniels added that Ohio voters are passionate about cannabis reform. While ACLU works on an array of issues—free speech, religious liberty, LGBT rights—he noted that “it seems that nothing activates Ohioans the same way as this particular issue.”
“The reception is, over the past couple years, much larger, much more robust than any of our other issues,” the ACLU official said.
Cat Packer, DPA’s director of drug markets and legal regulation, said legalization supporters “need to push back and show that there are folks, collectively, who are opposed to these types of policies.”
“I truly do think that this is one of the many tests of democracy that are happening right now in the country,” she said.
Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at MPP, outlined some of the new criminal charges that the proposals would enact, describing them as “basically a minefield of recriminalization.”
“If you were to pass a joint or share your homegrown cannabis or share your cannabis with your spouse or your roommate, you’d be a criminal again,” she said. “If you got your cannabis from anywhere other than an Ohio dispensary or your own personally grown cannabis by yourself—not even your roommate or your spouse—you’d be a criminal again.”
Under the Senate bill, smoking and vaping cannabis outdoors would be illegal—even in a person’s own backyard, O’Keefe noted. Landlords could set additional limits, meaning that in some cases, “tenants couldn’t smoke or vape cannabis anywhere.”
“The House bill is slightly less extreme when it comes to that,” she continued. For example, “You could smoke—probably, it’s a little ambiguous—in your own backyard, unless you’re a renter.”
O’Keefe said the proposals create “a huge amount of recriminalization and also the opportunity for law enforcement to interrogate people and stop and arrest them” for having simply a cannabis package in their car.
“Do you have your receipt? Where did it come from? Can you prove you grew it and it wasn’t somebody else?” O’Keefe explained. “It just opens the door to a ton of the kind of racially disparate searches that we’ve seen throughout the entire history of cannabis prohibition, and it could actually result in more people being arrested for cannabis and criminalized than were pre-legalization, because Ohio has had decrim on the books since the seventies.”
Packer, who is herself an Ohio resident, said the lawmaker-proposed restrictions are “not normal.”
Ohioans “created this bundle of rights for individuals 21 and older to ensure that activities like possession, like transfer, aren’t criminalized,” she asserted. “And what we’re seeing here, being introduced through these various pieces of legislation, would put Ohio as an outlier amongst many or all of the jurisdictions that have passed adult-use legalization thus far.”
“I cannot overstate how dangerous it would make Ohio for cannabis consumers,” she said.
Packer also pointed out that the legislation would remove voter-approved funding for social equity programs.
“Issue 2 included language that required the cannabis tax revenue that was generated to go primarily to three different places: 36 percent of the funds were supposed to go to a cannabis social equity and jobs fund; another 36 percent were supposed to go to the host community cannabis fund; and 25 percent were supposed to go to substance abuse and addiction fund,” she explained. “What we’ve seen essentially through both of these bills is the complete elimination of funding for equity-related programming, and essentially trying to utilize these revenues for other purposes.”
Most concerningly, Packer continued, revenue could go toward law enforcement or prison costs.
“If you are a cannabis consumer in Ohio and you are purchasing from the licensed and regulated market, and paying cannabis taxes, you could be very well paying for your own community’s criminalization,” she said, “and that, I think, is what is just completely insidious with this entire process.”
Packer appeared at one point to be urging the cannabis industry itself to step up lobbying efforts on behalf of consumers, noting that most advocacy seems to have been taken up by traditional marijuana reform groups rather than businesses.
“Hopefully we’ll see the haves show up and fight on behalf of consumers here in the state of Ohio,” she said. “But I think it’s very telling that we have national and local advocacy organizations right now that are standing up on behalf of and fighting on behalf of Ohioans. Meanwhile, by and large, the cannabis industry—these folks who are multi-state operators, have hundreds of businesses around the country—are silent while Ohioans are getting ready to lose their rights.”
Morgan Fox, NORML’s political director and the host of Thursday’s webinar, asked guests what residents could do to make their own voices heard in the Ohio Statehouse.
Daniels, at ACLU of Ohio, first acknowledged that it’s up in the air how lawmakers will proceed on what are now multiple pieces of legislation that could affect the state’s voter-approved marijuana law.
“We have these two bills in play,” he said, adding that provisions—like taxes—could also be enacted through the state budget bill. “Nobody’s quite sure at this point which one will take precedent among the legislators, whether they will cooperate and these will get combined in some fashion.”
He encouraged people interested to sign up for legislative alerts for committees set to hear the bills, but also noted that it can be difficult to stay on top of when measures will be considered and sign up to testify at least a day in advance of a hearing.
“They don’t make this easy for people to come in,” Daniels said. “A lot of people can’t get to Columbus, Ohio, on a Tuesday or a Wednesday.”
Those interested in weighing in but who can’t testify should email or call their own representatives as well as the the chairs of committees set to hear the legislation, he said.
Both NORML and MPP have resources online to learn about and take action on the legislation, including how to reach out to elected officials. And while tools make it easy to send prewritten emails, O’Keefe also encouraged making phone calls to the offices of elected officials.
“You will almost, for sure, just talk to a staff member,” she said. “Ask if the staffer can talk to the rep and see if they will oppose this bill and get back to you, or if you can call again in the next day or two.”
Armentano also suggested letters to editors at newspapers, while Packer encouraged outreach to friends and family to give them the opportunity to get involved.
“Mention by name the lawmakers who are trying to roll back this initiative,” Armentano advised. “Lawmakers like to see their names in the newspaper, but they don’t like to see their names when they’re being criticized.”
Earlier this month, Ohio’s Senate president pushed back against criticism of SB 56, claiming that the legislation does not disrespect the will of the electorate and would have little impact on products available in stores.
“My definitive message is: If you want to go purchase marijuana products from a licensed dispensary, that is going to be unchanged by Senate Bill 56,” Senate President Rob McColley (R) said during a podcast appearance. “The only difference you’ll notice is the packaging may not look as appealing to children, but you’ll still be able to buy the same products.”
Critics in the statehouse, such as Sen. Bill DeMora (D), who spoke against the measure on the Senate floor, said the plan “goes against the will of the voters and will kill the adult industry in Ohio.”
Separately in the legislature this month, Sens. Huffman and Shane Wilkin (R) introduced legislation that would impose a 15 percent tax on intoxicating hemp products and limit their sales to adult-use dispensaries—not convenience stores, smoke shops or gas stations.
“Currently, intoxicating hemp products are untested, unregulated psychoactive products that can be just as intoxicating, if not more intoxicating, than marijuana,” Wilkin said in recent sponsor testimony to the Senate General Government Committee.
Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has repeatedly asked lawmakers to regulate or ban intoxicating hemp products such as delta-8 THC.
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Advocates from drug reform and civil liberties groups held an event Thursday to draw attention to bills that would significantly amend Ohio’s marijuana legalization law, passed by voters in 2023. Among other changes, the measures would restrict legal products, create a host of new criminal penalties and adjust how cannabis tax revenue is spent. The Read More
