Ohio GOP legislative leaders, who were against recreational cannabis legalization in 2023, have said for weeks now that they want to revive a proposal to change the relatively new recreational laws.
House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said last Tuesday he believes any policies the state legislature pursues on THC should be enacted together, whether they deal with already-regulated cannabis products or unregulated hemp products. Last session, some House members had said they would not back a bill combining those policies, which partly derailed any further action.
In 2018, the federal government removed hemp products with less than 0.3% delta-9 THC from the definition of marijuana. Some products contain ingredients that still induce a high, but are unregulated statewide and legal at any age.
Huffman said he believes those should be sold through dispensaries only, not at retailers like corner stores and gas stations.
“I understand the intellectual argument of, ‘Well, if you’re trying to do it like alcohol, why don’t you let the low THC products?’” Huffman said. “You can always buy a 12-pack of Miller High Life and drink as much alcohol as you would a bottle of bourbon, if you had it, but I just don’t think that system is built out yet.”
Though Huffman has taken a softer stance, it’s unclear whether dispensaries would even want to sell the products. The cannabis industry generally wants a stricter mandate on unregulated offerings, which can be highly synthetic and sometimes untested, but not of its own already-regulated market.
Huffman and 28 other senators in 2023 voted to send a bill overhauling the state’s then-nonexistent recreational program voters had ratified. It limited potency of products, hiked the sales tax on them and retooled where tax revenue would go—but never got traction in the House.
Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) negotiated and backed the 2023 overhaul bill.
“Issue 2, the way it was drafted, has a ton of unintended consequences in it that are going to be particularly bad, particularly as it concerns public use, driving while intoxicated, things of that nature,” McColley said earlier in January. “At the same time, Ohioans voted for access to marijuana. That access ... is going to be preserved going forward.”
No bills had been publicly introduced as of Monday afternoon, according to the legislatures website.
