Uncertainty looms for medical and adult-use marijuana businesses following the introduction of Senate Bill 56, which would revise medical and adult-use marijuana laws and levy marijuana taxes.
“How can you just really go against what the people voted?” asked Ariane Kirkpatrick, the CEO of Mavuno of Ohio, formerly Harvest of Ohio.
Kirkpatrick told News 5 her business first began as a medical cannabis company in Central Ohio, with more than 25,000 medicinal patients throughout the state.
Then, when Issue 2 passed to legalize recreational marijuana, Kirkpatrick said it gave her an opportunity to expand in South Euclid and Cleveland’s Gordon Square.
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But now she said she fears what this could mean for her business and others if Senate Bill 56 is passed.
“The things that concerns me a lot is the social equity. While I have been afforded the opportunity to get into this business, it really should be where I’m a pioneer opening the doors for others to be able to have that same fortune that we have achieved,” Kirkpatrick said.
Republican State Senator Steven Huffman of District 5 introduced Senate Bill 56 on Tuesday, followed by its first Senate General Government Committee hearing on Wednesday.
Huffman said Senate Bill 56 would revise medical and adult-use marijuana laws and levy marijuana taxes by capping the number of dispensaries in the state at 350.
The proposed legislation would also reduce the number of plants that can be grown at home from 12 to 6 and reduce the maximum levels of THC allowed in adult-use cannabis from 90% to 70%.
Further changes would include increasing the tax on adult use of marijuana from 10% to 15% and requiring adult use and homegrown marijuana and paraphernalia in vehicles to be kept in the trunk or behind the back row of seats.
“In short, this bill is about government efficiency, consumer and child safety, and maintaining access to voter-approved adult-use marijuana,” said Huffman.
However, others, like Anthony Surace, the Regional Purchaser of Bloom Medicinals, which will soon become Bloom Cannabis, feel this legislation is a slap in the face.
“We're already struggling to get recreational patients in the door. Most of the people don't even know that it's live because we can't mark it correctly like other states,” Surace said.
Right now, Bloom Cannabis has four locations across the country, including one in Ohio.
But Surace said it’s more restrictive here compared to other states.
“We want to make sure that it goes through the way that it was voted on, and it doesn't feel that they are letting us have an opinion on what they're trying to push forward at this point,” Surace said.
Once the hearings are completed, the next step for this proposed legislation is for the committee to report it.
