BY MEGAN HENRY
Ohio Senate Republicans passed a bill Wednesday that would make significant changes to the marijuana law passed by Ohio voters in 2023, including reducing allowable levels of THC, limiting home grow, and making it illegal to buy and bring back across state lines.
Senate Bill 56 passed by a 23-9 party line vote and will now go to the Ohio House for consideration. (BGIN editor’s note: State Senator Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, voted in favor with her fellow Republicans.)
“Senate Bill 56 is a great bill because it’s reasonably appropriate,” said the bill’s author state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City. “It cuts down on the illicit marijuana market and it’s truly about protection and safety of children.”
The bill would limit Ohio’s home grow from 12 plants down to six, reduce the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90% down to a maximum of 70%, and mandates that marijuana can only be used in a private residence.
“You can get 600 joints a year out of the plant,” Huffman said. “That seems like an excessive amount.”
S.B. 56 allows someone to apply to the sentencing court to have their record expunged if they weren’t convicted or plead guilty to possessing 2.5 ounces of marijuana before the state law went into effect. Under the bill, the applicant must pay a $50 filing fee.
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“We are moving forward with a lackluster method that forces individuals to pay for their own expungement,” said State Sen. Willis E. Blackshear Jr., D-Dayton. “Many of these individuals are disenfranchised from our legal system and may lack the knowledge of how to go about expunging their records.”
The bill would combine the state’s medical and recreational marijuana programs under the Division of Cannabis Control, require marijuana be transported in the trunk of a car when traveling, and would limit the number of active dispensaries to 350.
It would also ban Ohioans from using marijuana that is not either from a licensed Ohio dispensary or cultivated at a consumer’s home. This would make it illegal for Ohioans to drive up to Michigan to purchase marijuana and bring it back over state lines.
“A no vote on Senate Bill 56 is a vote that will endanger Ohio’s children,” State Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson said.
Huffman introduced the bill last month and the Ohio Senate General Government Committee passed the bill Wednesday morning by a 5-2 party line. Blackshear and state Sen. Bill DeMora, the two Democrats on the committee, offered several bill amendments during the committee meeting, but they were all rejected.
“It is unfortunate that this committee would pass a bill so out-of-line with what the voters intended when they approved adult-use marijuana by a margin of over 14 points,” Blackshear said.
Ohio voters passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57% of the vote, and sales started in August 2024. Since it was passed as a citizen initiative, Ohio lawmakers have the ability to change the law. The state’s total recreational marijuana sales were $$346,923,461 as of Saturday, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Cannabis Control.
“This bill goes against the will of the voters,” DeMora said. “We’re not trying to take away the rights of people by making lots of things that are legal today illegal should this bill become law.”
When asked about this bill going against the will of the Ohio voters, Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said the changes in the bill are “very reasonable in nature.”
“The access that they voted for, their ability to go to licensed dispensaries and to purchase these products is not changing at all in this legislation,” he said.
State Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township, said S.B. 56 is a fair bill.
“Do we really want to be getting worked up and bothered by things that are ultimately unenforceable and silly when you look at it, particularly when there’s really good provisions in here that are protecting children and consumers,” he said.
Forty people submitted opponent testimony against S.B. 56 while only five people submitted proponent testimony.
All nine Senate Democrats voted against the bill.
“The Democrats at this point are standing up with the voters, the people that passed the issue,” said Minority Senate Leader Nickie J. Antonio, D-Lakewood. “This bill is very restrictive, too restrictive, and certainly not what the voters want.”
Marijuana has been legal in Ohio since December 2023 and Ohioans have been legally purchasing marijuana for nearly seven months.
“Now that marijuana has been legalized, people have been functioning in a certain way, and so it’s a lot harder to create some of these restrictions,” Antonio said.
She disagrees with the bill’s attempt to restrict marijuana use to only in a private residence.
“To lock people in their homes and say that’s the only place (they can smoke), I don’t think that’s what the voters intended,” Antonio said.
S.B. 56 originally would have raised the tax on adult-use marijuana from 10% to 15% and funneled all revenue from the adult-use tax to the state general fund, but those provisions were removed in committee.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget, which is currently being heard in the Ohio House, increases the tax on marijuana from 10% to 20%. The budget is due July 1.
Also from Ohio Capital Journal:
Ohio Republican state senator wants to ban diversity and inclusion efforts in public schools
A new bill proposed by an Ohio Republican lawmaker would ban diversity and inclusion efforts in Ohio K-12 public schools.
State Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, recently introduced Ohio Senate Bill 113 which would require every local board of education in the state to adopt a policy that would end any current diversity and inclusion offices or departments and ban any diversity, equity, and inclusion orientation or training. It would also prevent the creation of any new such offices or departments and using DEI in job descriptions.
Under the bill, each board of education would be required to create a complaint process for an alleged violation of the policy and the board would investigate the complaint with a hearing.
Ohio teacher unions were quick to critique the bill.
“This is another petty attempt from this legislature to sidestep local control and micromanage every aspect of how public schools operate,” Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper said in an email. “It is objectively a good thing for students of all races when school districts make an effort to hire a diverse teaching staff.”
Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro said S.B. 113 is a distraction.
“Ohio’s General Assembly should be focused on the real issues facing Ohioans and our schools — fully and adequately funding public schools and seeking solutions to help alleviate the economic challenges faced by families and communities,” he said in an email. Click to read more.
Ohio teachers take action amid state, federal education funding uncertainty
With state and federal funding up in the air, Ohio teachers are speaking out about what budget cuts would mean to their districts, about the importance of public schools to families and communities, and about how schools need to be strengthened to prioritize students’ futures.
In her 31 years as a teacher in Cleveland Public Schools, Tracy Radich has never felt the need to fight for public school funding as much as she has this year, with state and federal budgets both giving public schools uncertain futures.
“Having everything be so up in the air and … how we prepare and think about what might happen next school year, it makes me very fearful and very worried for the future of my school, my students,” said Radich, who has spent her career at Joseph M. Gallagher School, where she currently teaches third grade.
Radich joins many public school advocates in questioning the funding of private school voucher programs in Ohio at a rate of more than $1 billion last year, while public schools who educate 90% of the state’s student population sit on pins and needles awaiting the fate of their funding.
The state budget is currently being developed by the state legislature, but debates have been raging about whether or not funding for a model that’s been in place for years, called the Fair School Funding Plan by supporters, will stay in place for it’s last round of phase-in funding.
Members of the Republican supermajority have questioned whether or not the plan is sustainable, and while Gov. Mike DeWine’s executive budget included the final phase-in of funding, public education advocates criticized the governor’s lack of inflation inputs as part of the final round of funding. Click to read more.
