Latest news with #Bill160
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ohio Republican lawmakers plan to pass marijuana restrictions by end of June
The Ohio Statehouse. (Photo by David DeWitt, Ohio Capital Journal.) Ohio Republicans plan to pass recreational marijuana reform by the end of June. Both the House and Senate are working together to create restrictions, which have drawn criticism from legalized marijuana supporters around the state. Under the law passed by Ohio voters in November 2023, 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. Right now, Ohio House and Senate leaders are negotiating for multi-chamber-approved cannabis reform. 'Generally, trying to get to a place that more people support,' House Finance Chair Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, said. The lawmakers are trying to combine two bills: Senate Bill 56 and House Bill 160. Both make dozens of changes to cannabis access, but most notably, S.B. 56 limits THC content and reduces home growing to six plants, while H.B. 160 limits THC and keeps home growing the same. Asked if Statehouse Republicans had come to an agreement yet, Stewart said 'stay tuned.' He added that he did like the House's substitute bill — one that addressed the 'desire in the caucus to have low-dose drinks.' 'I think that there are going to be some adjustments on the criminalization side that should hopefully address some of those concerns,' Stewart said. That answer depends on who you ask. Ohio Senate Republican leaders have continued to say that the voters knew they wanted legal weed — but the lawmakers claim that voters didn't know everything they were voting on. Stewart and House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, have echoed those claims. 'It's obviously a complex issue growing out of the '23 initiative and with the growth of the THC, hemp, and artificially created hemp products,' he said. Huffman said he wanted to deal with delta 8, low-level THC products sold in convenience stores with no age limits first, as his 'primary goal is regulating the sale of all these products, including getting them out of the stores where they're accessible to minors.' Ohio Democratic lawmakers, and some Republicans, disagree with Huffman, saying it's about control. 'We want to make sure that the will of voters is protected,' House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, said. 'We want to make sure that the use of that revenue is upheld.' Contact them. To find your district's legislators, click here. You will see a page where you can put in your address. From there, two people should pop up on the screen. If you click the lawmaker's icon, you will be directed to their page. From there, you will see a banner with different options. Click the one that says 'Contact.' Depending on your browser, you may need to click a 'More' option before 'Contact.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Marijuana backers criticize Ohio bills attempting to change state law
Stock photo from Getty Images. Marijuana advocates called bills to change Ohio's weed laws 'a slap in the face' to voters. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws hosted a webinar last week about two bills that are trying to change Ohio's marijuana laws. 'Whether one believes that cannabis ought to be legal or not is almost a secondary issue,' said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano. 'The primary issue ought to be that elections have consequences, and the results of elections should matter.' Ohioans voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 by passing a citizen-initiated law, meaning Ohio lawmakers can change the law. Marijuana sales started in August 2024 and the state's total recreational marijuana sales were $376,482,070 as of Saturday, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Cannabis Control. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'Ohio looks like it has been rolling along very smoothly, and implementation has been going well,' said NORML Political Director Morgan Fox. 'There have been no major complaints from Ohioans, and it's premature for the legislature to try to interfere with it.' There are bills in both chambers trying to rewrite Ohio's marijuana laws — Senate Bill 56 and House Bill 160. 'It's not as if this pushback is coming because there have been negative or adverse consequences of Issue Two being implemented,' Armentano said. 'The law is working just fine, and Ohioans are happy with it. Lawmakers are trying to meddle with it and act as if there are issues with the law, when in fact, we're seeing the laws playing out the way voters intended.' These bills would be dangerous for cannabis users in Ohio, said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at Drug Policy Alliance. 'There are so many ways that if you are a cannabis consumer in Ohio, with either of these bills passed, you should consider that the law will consider you a criminal,' she said. S.B. 56 would cut the number of Ohio's home grow plants in half 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 require marijuana can only be used in a private residence. THC potency caps are a solution in search of a problem, Armentano said. 'Voters, by and large, don't like potency caps for cannabis,' he said. 'If we simply remove these products from the market, we're not going to get rid of the demand, but what we're going to do is drive the production of these products to the unregulated market.' S.B. 56 does allow someone to apply to the sentencing court to have their record expunged, but they would have to pay a $50 filing fee. The bill would require marijuana to only be transported in the trunk of a car when traveling and would limit the number of active dispensaries to 350. The Ohio Senate passed S.B. 56 last month, which would ban Ohioans from using marijuana that is not either from a licensed Ohio dispensary or cultivated at a consumer's home — meaning it would be illegal for Ohioans to drive up to Michigan to buy marijuana and bring it back over state lines. The bill has yet to have a hearing in the House. 'If you were to pass a joint or share your home grown cannabis, or share your cannabis with your spouse or your roommate, you would be a criminal again,' said Karen O'Keefe, director of state policies at Marijuana Policy Project. House Bill 160 would keep home grow and tax levels the same, but reduce THC levels and redirect most of the tax revenue to the state's general fund. The current tax revenue is divided up in several ways — 36% to the cannabis social equity and jobs fund, 36% to the host community cannabis fund, 25% to the substance abuse and addiction fund and 3% to the Division of Cannabis Control and Tax Commissioner Fund. 'My concern is we wouldn't be dedicating those monies where voters decided that the money should go,' Packer said. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's budget proposal would increase the tax on marijuana from 10% to 20%. The Ohio House is currently working on the budget, which is due July 1. Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fact check: Ohio GOP claims legalizing marijuana increases crime. It doesn't, legal expert says.
Now-Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, left, and Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, right. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.) Ohio Republican lawmakers continue to draft legislation restricting access to recreational marijuana, angering citizens across the political spectrum. But when one of the most powerful leaders is urging for restrictions, claiming that marijuana increases crime, viewers and readers asked us to look into it. We have a running series of answering questions and concerns about weed. This story focuses mainly on the lawmakers, claims they are making, and why they are proposing changes to current policy. Earlier installments have focused on learning the basics of the law, and then how to buy it, before it was open legal sales started in August 2024. Then, we answered questions on where to partake and then employment concerns. Our most recent story dealt with the latest restrictive proposal passed by the Ohio Senate. Many of the questions and comments for this piece stemmed from Thursday's story, which was about the Ohio House's proposal. 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. There are two bills being proposed by legislators — Senate Bill 56 and House Bill 160. Both make dozens of changes to cannabis access, but most notably, S.B. 56 limits THC content and reduces home growing to six plants while H.B. 160 limits THC and keeps home growing the same. For deep dives into each proposal, click here for Senate version and here for House version. Although House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, was addressing a question about local governments having their fair share of the tax revenue from marijuana, he made some statements about crime that caught our interest. 'Those local governments, by and large, are going to use the revenue to deal with the problems that are caused by more marijuana being available in the community — we're going to have more crime; we're going to have more addiction problems,' Huffman said. 'What are you basing that off of?' we asked the speaker. 'Really?' he responded incredulously. When this reporter nodded, he laughed and said he would give me what he thought was an equivalent. This was alcohol. 'The more alcohol is available, the more people drink and the more bad behavior results… That's what happens with marijuana and other substances that cause people to think poorly when they take it,' he said. He also said that it is linked to an increase in suicides if teens get access to it. 'I think that it's pretty clear that the science shows real problems, and we'll have to deal with it,' he added. But Case Western Reserve University Law professor Jonathan H. Adler, who also wrote 'Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane,' a book on the intersection of marijuana legalization, law and crime, corrected Huffman. 'When you look at crime statistics in jurisdictions that have taken this step, you don't see dramatic effects on crime and certainly don't see evidence of significant negative effects on crime, or increases in crime, that some people fear,' Adler said. 'There's evidence that suggests some sorts of crime may, in fact, decline.' Legalization of adult-use cannabis 'appears to reduce highway fatalities, appears to reduce some types of violent crime,' he continued. Even OVI incidents and enforcements in Ohio are down from 2024, before legal sales went into effect. As of March 2, there have been hundreds fewer in 2025 than this time last year, according to data from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Dozens of studies done over decades have had differing results, which is why Adler warns about using absolutes as Huffman did. 'People on various sides of the debate about marijuana legalization cherry-pick the studies that support their priors,' the professor continued. 'But when you look at the broader reviews of the literature as a whole, they don't see these big effects.' One must be careful not to confuse correlation and causation, he continued. There are so many variables as to why crime may increase one year and not the next. Although he dismissed Huffman's claims about crime and addiction, he acknowledged the speaker's statement that marijuana has been linked to youth suicide. 'The evidence that you see overall increases in suicide is still very weak,' he said. There is a stigma surrounding marijuana, and for a reason, he added. Federally, it's still illegal — so it's a crime. If someone is already breaking the law to steal, they probably wouldn't have an issue with breaking the law to smoke weed. But those crimes still aren't comparable. 'A lot of the negative effects that were predicted don't appear to be materializing,' he said. 'That doesn't mean there aren't negative effects, right?' This isn't to say that cannabis is a wonder drug, he laughed. 'Positive predictions not panning out — a lot of states thought the economic benefits in terms of tax revenue would be far greater than they've turned out to be,' he said. He said he thinks marijuana should be regulated like alcohol at the federal level, for sure, but that Huffman can't treat them the same when it comes to what they do to the body. 'There are people who will have a lot of alcohol and want to go out and do crazy things,' he said. 'And a lot of people that will want to use marijuana just sit on their couch and watch Netflix and eat Doritos or something.' The 'empirical evidence does seem to confirm a bit of that stereotype,' he laughed. Although he was speaking as a nonpartisan professor, Adler, who is a well-known conservative commentator, gave a final warning to the GOP leaders. 'There is always a risk that increasing regulation or restricting what's available to consumers will push some people into the illicit market,' he said. Senate GOP leaders have continued to say that the voters knew they wanted legal weed — but didn't know everything they were voting on. When it came to the other chamber and their more flexible version, we asked House Finance Chair Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, who is sponsoring H.B. 160, the same question. 'What do you say to the voters who say this isn't what they chose and they spoke, they don't want it reduced to 70%, they don't want the taxes going to the general revenue fund,' we asked him. 'I think that there is a core of what voters made clear that they wanted, that showed up in virtually all debate and public testimony on this, which is: 'We want to legalize marijuana, we want it to be taxed at 10%, we want to be able to grow it at home,'' the lawmaker responded. 'I think that beyond that, I think there's some fine print that was less important to folks in making that determination [of] how they voted.' He continued, adding that the voters put this forward as an initiated statute. 'Any idea that we're going to pass a law, and it's just the law for the end of time, and it's never subject to the democratic process and revision is not realistic, right?' he said. 'Putting something into initiated statute leaves it within the realm of the democratic process. So I think we are making very, very few changes here, and I think the folks who have contacted my office and said, 'Hey, we don't want certain restrictions on Issue 2' — nothing in our bill here contradicts that.' 'Are you insinuating that voters didn't read the entirety of Issue 2 and didn't know what they were voting on?' we asked. 'I have no idea what every single voter did or didn't do,' he replied. 'I said, I think when this is marketed as 'regulate marijuana like alcohol,' — we're doing that here. You have a 10% tax rate. It's legal. You can do it at home. We're not touching any of the core parts of Issue 2.' To find your district's legislators, click here. You will see a page where you can put in your address. From there, two people should pop up on the screen. If you click the icon of the lawmaker, you will be transported to their page. From there, you will see a banner with different options. Click the one that says 'Contact.' Depending on your browser, you may need to click a 'More' option before 'Contact.' Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ohio House Republicans introduce their own proposal to rewrite state's recreational marijuana law
Stock photo of a marijuana dispensary from Getty Images. A week after Ohio Senate Republicans passed a bill that would overhaul the state's marijuana law, Ohio House Republicans introduced their own proposal. Their version would keep home grow and tax levels the same, but reduce THC levels and redirect most of the tax revenue. State Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, introduced Ohio House Bill 160 during a press conference Thursday. Similar to the Senate's bill, the House's bill would reduce the THC levels in marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90% down to a maximum of 70% and caps the number of marijuana dispensaries to 350. The bill, however, would keep the 10% tax on marijuana and keep Ohio's home grow at 12 plants. 'Our bill preserves the core of Issue Two, while also adding important protections for Ohio's minors and addressing the issue of intoxicating hemp,' Stewart said, noting his goal is to pass a marijuana bill before the lawmakers go on summer break. Ohioans passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57% of the vote, and sales started in August 2024. Ohio lawmakers can change the law since it passed as a citizen initiative. The state's total recreational marijuana sales were $361,994,872 as of Saturday, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Cannabis Control. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'Every product that is legal today will remain legal under this bill,' Stewart said. 'I think we are making very, very few changes here. … We're not touching any of the core parts of Issue Two.' The bill deals directly with intoxicating hemp by requiring every THC product to be treated like marijuana and only be sold at the state's regulated marijuana dispensaries. 'Simply put, if it gets you high, it goes through a dispensary,' Stewart said. 'I don't think Ohioans are excited about the fact that you get essentially the same thing that's less safe from a local gas station. I don't want my kids to go walk into your local gas station chain and buy marijuana.' The bill would change how the marijuana tax revenue is directed, sending a 'bulk of tax revenue to Ohio's general fund,' Stewart said, mentioning he worked closely with House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, on drafting the bill. Even though legal weed sales started last year, Ohioans could start legally growing marijuana at home shortly after Issue Two passed in 2023. 'I think the longer you wait, the harder it is to make substitute changes,' Stewart said. 'I think in the real world, folks who are growing 12 plants today are not likely to grow less than 12 plants just because we passed a law at the Statehouse.' H.B. 160 prohibits using marijuana in public spaces, but allows for smoking inside a privately owned property, including outside on a residential front porch. 'It's legal to use these products at your home,' Stewart said. The bill would also offer expungement for prior convictions for marijuana related offenses. 'As the views of Ohioans have shifted on the issue of marijuana, our laws should reflect that, and allowing people to remove these offenses from their criminal record is good policy,' Stewart said. Even though the Senate recently passed their own bill, Stewart doesn't think his bill will create a possible standstill where nothing gets passed. 'I'm going to leave it to the two gentlemen that hold the gavel as to which bill is moving, but it's one or the other,' Stewart said. The Ohio Cannabis Coalition (OHCANN) is still digesting this latest piece of legislation, but Deputy Executive Director Adrienne Robbins seemed optimistic about H.B 160. 'We do think this is a really positive step forward,' she said. 'When you look at the Senate bill and the different iterations of it that came out, I think this is another step forward, and it does make us feel like lawmakers are one, listening to us, but then, maybe more importantly, listening to consumers' concerns as well.' Senate Bill 56 would significantly change Ohio's weed laws. The bill would limit Ohio's home grow from 12 plants down to six, reduce the THC levels from a maximum of 90% to a maximum of 70%, and mandates that marijuana can only be used in a private residence. S.B. 56 allows someone to apply to the sentencing court to have their record expunged if they were 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. 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. The bill originally dealt with taxes and how funds were distributed, but those provisions were removed during 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. This is not the first time both chambers have tried to pass their own legislation in attempts to change the state's marijuana law. Shortly after Ohioans voted to legalize marijuana, the Ohio Senate quickly passed a bill that would have made major changes to the law that would have affected taxes and home grow, but the Ohio House never brought the bill to the floor. Instead, state Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, introduced a bill that would have clarified some of Issue 2's language, but it never made it out of committee. Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
