Lawmakers prepare to alter voter-approved marijuana law

Jenny Beth Dills

Original High At 9 News Story

06-03-2025

Ohio lawmakers are nearing a vote on a bill that would override some of what voters intended when they agreed to legalize the possession, sale, growing, use, and sharing of recreational marijuana by adults 21 and older.

Differing visions of what voters approved and what the House of Representatives, Senate, and Gov. Mike DeWine have proposed came together last week in a revised Senate Bill 56.

The compromise addresses such disputes as how much individuals may grow in their own homes, where they can smoke or vape, and whether some things legalized by voters could be recriminalized.

“This is getting us to a single vehicle ..., one vote to take rather than having three or four different bills,” said Rep. Brian Stewart (R., Ashland), sponsor of the House version.

House Speaker Matt Huffman (R., Lima) wants to get a bill to Mr. DeWine’s desk before lawmakers recess for the summer by June 30.

“This was a new issue as of November, 2023, a whole new set of regulations,” he said. “THC products are not the same as alcohol. For all we say about not wanting to have smoking of tobacco in public places, we still have marijuana.”

“When you create something new like this there are always two dozen things that nobody thought of, especially when it gets drafted as an initiative,” Mr. Huffman said.

Fifty-seven percent of those casting ballots agreed in November, 2023, to approve Issue 2, which legalized adult use of recreational marijuana and required the state to build out its existing medical marijuana infrastructure to meet the new demand.

Unlike a constitutional amendment, which can only be changed through another voter-approved amendment, the result of an initiated statute like Issue 2 is a law like any other. It can be amended or even repealed by lawmakers and the governor at any time.

Rep. Jamie Callender (R., Concord), a legalization advocate, praised the progress toward resolving the legislative logjam that has lasted a year and a half. But he worried some provisions might recriminalize what voters decriminalized.

“Certainly everybody that voted ‘yes’ [at the polls] expected to be able to possess and consume cannabis without risk of going to jail if it was in a personal quantity,” he said.

The revised bill would retain the existing 10 percent tax approved by voters, but it would eliminate all of the earmarks for distributing that revenue. That includes the proposed social equity fund that was supposed to get 36 percent of the tax pie to assist communities seen as having been disproportionately affected by past anti-marijuana laws.

Instead, all tax revenue would be diverted to the state’s general fund and spent as each two-year budget dictates.

Between August, when sales began, and May 24, nearly $540 million in recreational marijuana products have been sold. That translates into about $54 million in taxes, not counting existing state and local sales taxes that also apply.

The sole earmark exception would be 25 percent of tax proceeds to local governments hosting at least one dispensary as of June 30, 2026. That earmark would expire after seven years.

That’s up from 20 percent over five years in Mr. Stewart’s House proposal and zero in Senate Bill 56, sponsored by Sen. Stephen Huffman (R., Tipp City). The latter passed that chamber along party lines in February.

Mr. Callender said local governments made decisions based, in part, on the promise that dispensaries located within their borders would come with a new revenue stream.

“I’m very concerned that we deviate away from that 36 percent that they would get from those local entities....,” Mr. Callender said. “I appreciate 25 percent’s a lot better than where it started.”

Among other key provisions of the proposed compromise would:

● Allow adult-use consumers to grow up to six plants per person at home or 12 per household for personal use.

● Allow smoking, vaping, and sharing on privately owned property and at outdoor concert venues with owners’ permission.

● Prohibit smoking and vaping in public places, places of employment, homes that double as child-care facilities, halfway houses, and community residential centers.

● Allow landlords to prohibit smoking or vaping by tenants.

● Cap the number of licensed retail dispensaries at 400 and require them to be at least one mile apart.

● Allow individuals to possess up to 2.5 ounces of plant material and 15 grams of extract for personal use.

● Require product and paraphernalia transported in a motor vehicle to be stored in its original unopened packaging or in the trunk or back seat.

● Require the Department of Marijuana Control to adopt procedures for delivery and online ordering.

● Prohibit issuance of business licenses to anyone convicted in the last five years of a disqualifying offense — a drug felony or first-degree misdemeanor, felony theft, a violation of the Pure Food and Drug Law, and a crime of “moral turpitude,” but not marijuana misdemeanors.

● Cap THC content for plant material at 35 percent and 70 percent for extracts, but allow regulators to raise those limits. The voter-approved law set extract at 90 percent.

● Require intoxicating hemp and drinkable cannabinoid products to be regulated by the Department of Commerce.

● Require intoxicating hemp and drink products to be sold at licensed marijuana dispensaries with the exception of licensed micro-distilleries, grocery stories, carry-outs, bars, and restaurants when it comes to hemp drinks.

● Remove proposed three-day mandatory jail time for passengers of motor vehicles who use marijuana, although that offense would still be a minor misdemeanor.

● Increase potential size of licensed large-scale cultivators from 25,000 to 100,000 square feet and small-scale cultivators from 3,000 to 15,000 square feet.