Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023, but Republicans are on their way to restricting it. Throughout the past 24 hours, the most commonly asked question I’ve received is, ‘How is this legal and how do we stop them?’
I have a running series of answering viewer and reader questions and concerns about weed. This story focuses on how Senate Bill 56 or other recent policy proposals could impact you.
Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023, but Republicans are on their way to restricting it.
First, let’s break down the current law. If you are 21 years old or older, you can smoke, vape and ingest marijuana. Individually, you can grow six plants, but you can grow up to 12 plants per household if you live with others.
You can have up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana in all forms except for concentrates, which you can only have up to 15 grams.
What are the major changes the state is trying to make?
Senate Republicans passed S.B. 56, which places limits on advertising, and also prevents packages from appealing to kids.
“We need some common-sense safety protections for people in the state of Ohio, primarily for children,” Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said.
Most notably, though, it decreases the THC content in products and limits home growing to six plants.
Click here to read more about what is in S.B. 56.
THC, the psychoactive cannabinoid, would be capped at 100 milligrams per package. It also primarily reduces the allowable THC levels in adult-use extracts from a max of 90% to 70%.
Any other type of marijuana product (like edibles) would be limited to 10mg per serving and 100mg per package.
Would medical marijuana be impacted by the proposed THC restrictions?
No.
“It would not be because the medical marijuana program runs under a different statute,” Entin said.
Where does the money go?
Currently, the law gives the 10% tax revenue from each marijuana sale to four different venues: 36% to the social equity fund, to help people disproportionately impacted by marijuana-related laws; 36% to host cities — ones that have dispensaries; 25% to the state’s mental health and addiction services department; and 3% to the state’s cannabis control department.
But as Case Western Reserve University constitutional law professor Jonathan Entin explained, the social equity fund would be removed under S.B. 56.
“The main push is to use the tax revenue basically for law enforcement purposes,” he said.
Could anything change with the cost?
Yes, but not through S.B. 56.
Gov. Mike DeWine proposed, and the House is debating now, how much the tax at the point of sale is.
Will medical marijuana be impacted by the new proposed tax hikes that the House is proposing in the budget?
No.
Can citizens go to court to stop this?
No.
“Nothing in the state constitution limits the legislature’s ability to tinker with or even completely repeal a popularly adopted statute,” Entin continued.
For context, there are two main ways citizens can get something on the statewide ballot: an initiated statute and a constitutional amendment. The recreational marijuana proposal was an initiated statute, which means it goes into the Ohio Revised Code. An initiated statute, or a law, has an easier process of making it to the ballot than a constitutional amendment. Initiated statutes can be easily changed, while amendments cannot.
How can lawmakers justify their changes?
GOP leaders have continued to say that the voters knew they wanted legal weed — but didn’t know everything they were voting on.
“I’m not sure why people voted for the initiative — it could have been home grow, public smoking, increase in dispensaries; it could have been anything,” S.B. 56 bill sponsor Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City) said. “We’ll never know.”
Read more at News 5 Cleveland