Ohio Senate President pushes back on criticisms about a bill which would reduce parts of voter-approved legal marijuana laws. The president claims the legislation doesn’t disrespect the voters and will have little impact in the stores.
Rob McColley, Senate president (R), said in a podcast on Friday that the Senate Bill will have no effect on marijuana purchases made at licensed dispensaries. The only thing you will notice is that the packaging might not be as attractive to children. But you can still buy the products.
McColley appeared on The President’s Podcast. The podcast was produced and released by Ohio Senate Republicans. John Fortney (the communications director of the Senate GOP Caucus) and McColley spent the first part of the podcast defending SB 56. This would amend the Cannabis Law passed by the voters in November, 2023.
The new bill will, amongst other changes, halve how many plants an adult can have, add criminal sanctions for cannabis-related behavior, and delete certain provisions of the social equity law.
The Senate approved the proposal on a 23–9 vote last week.
Some critics, like Sen. Bill DeMora, (D), have said that this plan is “against the will of voters” and would kill adult entertainment in Ohio.
Fortney began the podcast by acknowledging “a lot of controversy around Senate Bill 56,” asserting that “all it did was preserve access to what the voters approved in November of 2023, the initiated marijuana statute, and put some safety and security parameters around it for—of all things, Mr. President—children.”
“The far left, the Democrat narrative, the narrative of the legacy media, has been, ‘Republicans are trying to take away what the voters approved,’ which is patently false,” Fortney continued. “What a Lie.”
McColley responded, “Absolutely,” warning newspaper and television news readers that they would “hear an awful lot” of falsehoods and hyperbole about the proposed proposal.
Fortney wrote in an unrelated blog that this proposal had “created media tantrums the size of tsunamis, all for pot.”
He wrote: “Coverage from Ohio’s traditional media, which haven’t learnt anything since the election in November, seems to believe it’s wise to leave families and children unprotected against secondhand smoke.”
McColley stated initially in the podcast that SB 56’s “only” differences would be in the packaging. However, later he noted that it would lower the potency of THC in marijuana flower or concentrates. It would also cap THC levels per pack in edible products.
The current version would prohibit people who have felony convictions to obtain a marijuana licence and reinstate the right of growers at level two to expand to a maximum area of 15,000 square foot.
This legislation from Senator Steve Huffman, (R), also rolls back the homegrow provisions that were approved by voters, and reduces the number of plants a homeowner can grow from twelve to six.
Fortney stated on the podcast, “That would still be a huge amount of buds or produce that you could have.”
McColley replied: “Many marijuana plants are capable of producing enough marijuana to make up to 300 joint in one year, depending on their harvest cycle.” So you do the math—and this is supposed to be for personal use—but yeah, even just 12 plants, that’s 3,600 joints a year.”
The Senate President noted that under current law criminal penalties do not kick in for home cultivation until 24 plants are grown by a family. “That is 7,200 joints per year,” he added.
Fortney said, “I smoked a lot, I told you. But I didn’t smoke 7 000 cigars.
McColley stated that “it is obvious that you would be transferring marijuana to someone else, either for profit or other reasons, which are illegal.” “Lowering it to a six-plant-per-household threshold is still plenty of marijuana for people to consumer for their own personal use.”
Reformers oppose this legislation. They argue that the legislation would not only limit permissible activities, but also criminalize sharing cannabis among adults, vaping or smoking in one’s backyard, and transporting edibles unopened in a car.
McColley’s podcast emphasized that the bill aims to restrict smoking marijuana in public.
It’s prohibited to smoke marijuana in a park with children. “I believe most people will agree [that] You don’t want to be walking through smoke when you are taking your kids to the ballgame or going out to dinner with elderly parents.
He has also minimized the danger of criminal prosecution arising from public consumption.
The likelihood that anyone will face serious consequences for this is slim, he added, because a minor offense can only be punished by a fine.
“What’s more likely to happen is that, if you see people consuming those products— again, only smoking in public—what you would likely see is somebody simply go up to them and say, ‘You can’t do that here; you got to do it somewhere else.'”
SB 56 will eliminate the non-discrimination provisions to protect cannabis users from being denied custody of their children, or access to health care services and other public benefits.
DeMora stated on the Senate Floor that the “top priority” of any marijuana legislation should be the preservation of the will of people, adding that the “people made their will know” when they passed Issue 2.
They demanded higher THC limits. The ability to have 12 plants grown at home was important. They want level 3 craft growers. Smoking restrictions in public places should be based on common sense. The Democratic Senator said that they also wanted taxation to support the efforts of municipalities in tackling addictions and drug abuse, and for those affected by criminalization. “This bill doesn’t do any of that.” It makes them worse.
Sen. Louis Blessing expressed support for this proposal. However, he stated that if the lawmakers were having a debate on revising the laws, they would have already moved forward to legalize the substance before it was voted upon.
The bill’s original form would have increased the excise taxes on marijuana from 10% to 15% and changed the way that tax revenue is distributed to local government. At the hearing, the state’s tax on marijuana products was raised from 10 percent to 15 percent. It also changed the way taxes are redistributed among local governments.
While the increased excise tax rate was removed from the latest version of SB 56, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has separately indicated plans to double the double the current tax rate via the budget process, raising it to 20 percent.
According to the Senate-passed bill, it is no longer necessary for the Division of Cannabis Control of Washington State to create rules that allow online sales and marijuana delivery.
Fortney asks McColley, at one stage in the podcast: Why don’t lawmakers just allow the Department of Cannabis Control to write rules for the adult market?
Senate President said it would be “an abuse” of their duty and power.
“It is not the job of regulators to make laws, even if they are well-intentioned,” said he. “They are employees of the State.” No one elected them.
The people who elected us here will not be satisfied if we do not exercise our legislative power.
However, in general he believes that state regulators do a “good job”.
McColley commented, “There is a lot of pressure on them, and they are doing the very best that can be expected of them.”
Some Democrats are willing to fine-tune the marijuana law. However, they say Huffman’s changes proposed to home cultivation provisions is a step too far.
Casey Weinstein, a Democratic senator from California for instance, said that there is “definitely bipartisan agreement on protecting children in the marketing of cannabis and reasonable limitations to where one can use it,” but no support for undermining basic components of what voters have approved.
Before last week’s Senate hearing on the floor, the ACLU of Ohio released a call for action. It urged people to reach out to their representatives and voice opposition to any proposed changes.
The bill’s advancement comes as Ohio’s GOP House speaker seems to have changed his tune on the state’s marijuana law somewhat, walking back his previously stated plan to undermine provisions of the voter-approved initiative such as home cultivation rights.
In the final days of the previous session, conflicts between Senate Republican and House Republican leadership played an important role in delaying amendment proposals. The chambers are unlikely to be able reach a consensus in this round. This is especially true as consumers and the economy continue to change.
House Speaker Matt Huffman, who was previously the Senate President and is the cousin to SB 56’s sponsors, stated that while he still opposes the reform measure that voters approved, he does not believe that anyone “really suggests that we are going to repeal legalization of cannabis.”
I’m against it. The casinos in Ohio were not something I was for either. “But there are many things in the Constitution and law which I do not like,” said he.
To that end, the speaker indicated he’s no longer interested in pursuing plans to broadly undermine the cannabis law, despite having backed legislation as a Senate leader last session that would have decreased allowable THC levels in state-legal cannabis products, reduced the number of plants that adults could grow at home and increased costs for consumers at dispensaries.
Initially, changes backed by Matt Huffman last year would have eliminated home cultivation rights entirely for Ohio adults and criminalized all cannabis obtained anywhere other than a state-licensed retailer.
Some Democratic legislators have indicated they are open to revisions such as allocating certain tax revenues from cannabis sales for K-12 education. However, supporters of the legalization initiative that was approved by the voters do not want the legislatures to undermine their will.
Meanwhile, as 2024 came to a close with the new marijuana legalization law in effect, Ohio officials announced the state saw adult-use cannabis sales exceed $242 million.
A number of key hemp-related changes are expected in 2025. Legislators heard testimony in November on a proposed ban of intoxicating hemp-based products. Steve Huffman, the sponsor of the marijuana revision bill, introduced that proposal after the governor called on lawmakers to regulate or ban delta-8 THC products.
Separately, despite legalization of adult-use cannabis in Ohio, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’s (VA) Cincinnati health center issued a reminder last summer that government doctors are still prohibited from recommending medical cannabis to veterans—at least as long as it remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.
Medical Marijuana Is A ‘Safe And Effective Treatment’ For Pain And Sleep Issues In Older People, Study Shows