Despite efforts in the Ohio legislature to pass a bill to significantly change the state’s voter-approved marijuana law, last-minute disagreements between the House and Senate Republicans seemed to have derailed that plan for now—with House lawmakers signaling that a deal won’t be struck before the summer recess.
In recent weeks the House Judiciary Committee took public testimony, adopted certain modifications to SB 56 passed by the Senate, and then declined to proceed with the proposed legislation as scheduled during a hearing held on Wednesday. As a result, the measure could not be brought to a planned floor vote for the day. According to multiple legislators, it’s clear that key senators were not happy with the revised legislation.
Rep. Jamie Callender, a Republican lawmaker who supports legalization and is a member of News 5 Cleveland’s pro-legalization committee said: “It seems that the Senate has changed its mind.”
The changes approved by a Senate hearing in late February included a reversal of some strict limitations in the Senate’s version, which prohibited adults from sharing marijuana on their private property.
Callender who spent several weeks on the additional amendments to the bill said, “They wanted a mandatory prison sentence for sharing a joint with friends.” The senator also proposed to place all tax money from cannabis in the general state fund. This would prevent local municipalities receiving a share as per current law.
“The Senate was proposing to remove that tax and the House fought very hard to retain that,” said the Ohio lawmaker who, when recreational marijuana sales started last year, had been one of the earliest people in the state to buy it. “We finally negotiated that so that it would be in.”
In March, a survey of 38 municipalities by the Ohio State University’s (OSU) Moritz College of Law found that local leaders were “unequivocally opposed” to earlier proposals that would have stripped the planned funding.
Senate President Rob McColley said that “there had been a misunderstanding as to what we could have done as both chambers.”
House Speaker Matt Huffman, who was formerly the Senate President, expressed his disappointment that the Judiciary Committee would not be discussing the bill on Wednesday because the Senate had refused to do so.
He said: “I was surprised to find that the Senate raised a new set of questions, or additional concerns, about what we are trying do.
It remains to be seen where this leaves legislation. McColley still said that he “would like to see something by the end June”, and Huffman believed the same. But the House speaker has tempered these expectations. He says he is “not optimistic” in this regard.
“I just told my caucus: ‘We’re not going to just say OK because we’re so anxious to pass the marijuana bill,’ which I’d like to get it done, but we’re not going to give up House priorities to do that,” Huffman said.
I thought that we would be able to get through it by the end of last week. [this week]. Huffman stated that this was a clear indicator. Huffman said that, in spite of this indication, “there was also no agreement.” [with the Senate] Pull out from “
“We were hoping that there would be, anticipating there would be, sounded like we might have—but it’s not correct to say that there was an agreement that anybody pulled out of,” he said.
On this point, Sen. Steve Huffman(R), who is a close relative to the Senate’s main negotiator and speaker on marijuana issues, was of a different opinion.
He stated, “We reached an agreement.” “I still believe things are being worked out and I’m confident we’ll resolve the issue by next week.”
Callender questioned that claim, and said that he believed that the Senate will continue to resist any attempts to amend the law that would conflict with the wishes of voters that approved legalization by 2023.
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Meanwhile in Ohio, adults are now able to buy more than double the amount of marijuana than they were under previous limits, with state officials determining that the market can sustainably supply both medical cannabis patients and adult consumers.
Budget measure by Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) budget proposal could also be used to change the marijuana laws in Ohio. As proposed, it would remove local tax allocations of medical marijuana revenue and double the state cannabis tax rate to 20 percent—though legislative leaders have said they will be removing the tax increases.
Meanwhile, DeWine in March announced his desire to reallocate marijuana tax revenue to support police training, local jails and behavioral health services. DeWine said that funding police training would be a priority even if it wasn’t part of what the voters approved in 2023.
Ohio’s Senate president has also pushed back against criticism of the Senate bill, claiming the legislation does not disrespect the will of the electorate and would have little impact on products available in stores.
Separately lawmakers are also considering legislation that would restrict the use of intoxicating hemp-based products.
DeWine has repeatedly asked lawmakers to regulate or ban intoxicating hemp products such as delta-8 THC.
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