Republican lawmakers in Ohio are once again aiming to scale back parts of the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law, looking to a proposal from last year that would have decreased allowable THC levels in state-legal cannabis products, reduced the number of plants that adults can grow at home and increased costs for consumers at dispensaries.
Those provisions, backed by Senate President Matt Huffman (R), were added to separate House legislation last year and passed by the Senate. House lawmakers ultimately blocked the Senate changes, however, with some members emphasizing the importance of protecting the will of voters, who passed the legalization law on a 53–47 margin in November 2023.
Come next month, however, Huffman will take over as speaker of the House, having won a seat in last month’s election and subsequently being chosen for the leadership role by colleagues. The move is widely expected to give Huffman new power to push his marijuana proposal forward.
“There were some fundamental flaws in the initiative that was introduced and passed by the voters, which you usually have when there’s not a vetting from all sides,” Huffman told reporters last week about the voter-approved marijuana law. “The bill that the Senate passed last December addresses many of those things.”
Initially, changes backed by Hoffman would have eliminated home cultivation rights entirely for Ohio adults and criminalized all cannabis obtained anywhere other than a state-licensed retailer. Those amendments would have also reduced the marijuana possession limit, raised sales tax on cannabis purchases and diverted funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement.
Senators subsequently scaled back those amendments, proposing that households be able to grow no more than six plants rather than 12, as is currently allowed under the law. The revised bill would still have raised taxes on cannabis and limited potency, however.
Huffman has been critical of the homegrow provision, having said that “the only reason someone would be growing that much marijuana is to resell it.”
“The amount of home growth that’s happening, of course, is far beyond the use for one or two people who may be growing it in their home,” Huffman said last week.
“The only reason that someone would be growing that much is to resell it,” he added, “likely would be part of supplying an illegal market.”
Not all GOP lawmakers are on board, however. Outgoing House Speaker Jason Stephens (R) has been dubious of Huffman’s plan.
“As we’ve said, this is the People’s House, and we will continue to respect the will of the voters,” Stephens told local ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland last week.
Come next month, however, Huffman will replace Stephens as speaker, giving him more power to dictate the chamber’s priorities.
Huffman has served eight years in the Senate and was term-limited, which led him to run for the House position in November. After he won that seat, his caucus later in the month voted to support him for the speaker post.
Ohio’s 2025 legislative session begins early next month.
Republican Rep. Jamie Callendar has also pushed back against Huffman’s plan to further limit marijuana in Ohio, noting that the state-licensed market only got up and running in August. Within 11 days of the market launch, retailers had reportedly sold $22.5 million worth of cannabis products.
As of late October, licensed retailers had sold more than $131 million worth of recreational marijuana.
“The world doesn’t fall apart,” Callendar told reporters last week. “The sky isn’t falling.”
Callendar is an outspoken supporter of cannabis legalization and earlier this year became one of the first people to make a legal cannabis purchase in the state.
Meanwhile, lawmakers last month took testimony on a proposal that would ban intoxicating hemp products in the state. Sen. Steve Huffman (R) introduced that bill after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) called on lawmakers to regulate or ban delta-8 THC products.
Despite legalization of adult-use cannabis in Ohio, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’s (VA) Cincinnati health center issued a reminder this summer that government doctors are still prohibited from recommending medical cannabis to veterans—at least as long as it remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.
Veterans groups have long been supportive of cannabis reform and have helped drive changes at the state level. That advocacy has continued as the federal government weighs moving marijuana to a less-restrictive schedule of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Last month, for example, the organization Veterans Action Council filed a challenge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an effort to force the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to include the group in upcoming hearings on the Biden administration’s proposal to move marijuana to Schedule III of the CSA.
Republican lawmakers in Ohio are once again aiming to scale back parts of the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law, looking to a proposal from last year that would have decreased allowable THC levels in state-legal cannabis products, reduced the number of plants that adults can grow at home and increased costs for consumers at dispensaries. Read More
