COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023, but Republicans are on their way to restricting it. Throughout the past 24 hours, the most commonly asked question I've received is, 'How is this legal and how do we stop them?'
I have a running series of answering viewer and reader questions and concerns about weed. This story focuses on how Senate Bill 56 or other recent policy proposals could impact you.
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, I answered questions on where to partake and then employment concerns.
Many of the questions for this piece stemmed from Wednesday's story.
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.
What are the major changes the state is trying to make?
Senate Republicans passed S.B. 56, which places limits on advertising, and also prevents packages from appealing to kids.
"We need some common-sense safety protections for people in the state of Ohio, primarily for children," Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said.
Most notably, though, it decreases the THC content in products and limits home growing to six plants.
Click here to read more about what is in S.B. 56.
THC, the psychoactive cannabinoid, would be capped at 100 milligrams per package. It also primarily reduces the allowable THC levels in adult-use extracts from a max of 90% to 70%.
Any other type of marijuana product (like edibles) would be limited to 10mg per serving and 100mg per package.
Would medical marijuana be impacted by the proposed THC restrictions?
No.
"It would not be because the medical marijuana program runs under a different statute," Entin said.
Where does the money go?
Currently, the law gives the 10% tax revenue from each marijuana sale to four different venues: 36% to the social equity fund, to help people disproportionately impacted by marijuana-related laws; 36% to host cities — ones that have dispensaries; 25% to the state’s mental health and addiction services department; and 3% to the state’s cannabis control department.
But as Case Western Reserve University constitutional law professor Jonathan Entin explained, the social equity fund would be removed under S.B. 56.
"The main push is to use the tax revenue basically for law enforcement purposes," he said.
Could anything change with the cost?
Yes, but not through S.B. 56.
Gov. Mike DeWine proposed, and the House is debating now, how much the tax at the point of sale is.
DeWine proposed raising it from 10% to 20%.
RELATED: Ohio weed costs double Michigan's, but lawmakers want to make it even more expensive
Will medical marijuana be impacted by the new proposed tax hikes that the House is proposing in the budget?
No.
Can citizens go to court to stop this?
No.
"Nothing in the state constitution limits the legislature's ability to tinker with or even completely repeal a popularly adopted statute," Entin continued.
For context, there are two main ways citizens can get something on the statewide ballot: an initiated statute and a constitutional amendment. The recreational marijuana proposal was an initiated statute, which means it goes into the Ohio Revised Code. An initiated statute, or a law, has an easier process of making it to the ballot than a constitutional amendment. Initiated statutes can be easily changed, while amendments cannot.
How can lawmakers justify their changes?
GOP leaders have continued to say that the voters knew they wanted legal weed — but didn't know everything they were voting on.
"I'm not sure why people voted for the initiative — it could have been home grow, public smoking, increase in dispensaries; it could have been anything," S.B. 56 bill sponsor Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City) said. "We'll never know."
I questioned why this rhetoric persists.
"[You and other lawmakers have said] voters knew that they were choosing marijuana, but they didn't know exactly what they were voting. Why do you think that?" I asked Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon).
"Well, I wouldn't say they didn't know what they're voting on," he said, contradicting what he and his colleagues have said for years. "I think what the comment [that] was made today was that everybody may have had a different reason for getting to yes and, just like with any other large piece of legislation, that is voluminous and dealing with a variety of changes."
Since voters chose to vote on it as an initiated statute instead of a constitutional amendment, they should have known the risk that lawmakers would get involved, the president added.
What voters "really" voted for, was "access to products," McColley said in 2023.
What can we do to stop them?
"Their remedy is to vote the legislators out," Entin said.
... Eventually.
S.B. 56 or some other bill changing cannabis policy will likely be implemented in the coming months, according to leaders in both chambers. But the next time House lawmakers will be up for election is 2026, while some senators face reelection in 2026 and others in 2028.
Or, you could try reaching out to them, testifying at the Statehouse, or protesting. The bill still needs to get through the House, which is more weed-friendly than the Senate.
Here's the problem that election law experts have warned about.
"Gerrymandering is basically the ability to draw maps to make a party more powerful than they are popular," CWRU's Atiba Ellis said. "The problem is we can draw maps to create more districts where it's easier for Republicans to win than it is for Democrats."
Ohio is clearly a red state now, but it isn't nearly as red as the legislative makeup, Ellis explained.
"They've been able to draw districts so that there are more districts that work for the advantage of Republican officeholders than there are roughly the number of people who vote for Republicans across the state," he said.
Prior to the 2024 election, President Donald Trump won Ohio by eight points each, garnering 51% of the vote in 2016 and 53% in 2020.
In 2024, the Ohio Senate has 33 members: 26 Republicans and 7 Democrats. The Republicans made up nearly 80% of the chamber. The Ohio House had 99 members: 67 Republicans and 32 Democrats. The Republicans made up nearly 70% of the chamber.
Even when Trump won in 2024, he garnered 55% of the vote — less than the 57% of Ohioans who chose legal weed the year prior.
Currently, Ohio lawmakers draw the legislative and congressional maps — ones that directly impact them and their colleagues. Voters had a chance to change that and remove politicians from the map-making process in 2024 with Issue 1, but it failed.
Republican leaders have now admitted that their messaging to prevent Issue 1 from passing was confusing to voters and that it was a "good strategy" to win, according to reporting by the Fremont News-Messenger.
Who voted to change the marijuana policy?
So far, only the Senate has taken a vote.
Each of the Republicans who were present voted yes, and all of the Democrats voted no.
To put it simply: Republican Senators Rob McColley, Theresa Gavarone, Michele Reynolds, Steve Huffman, Steve Wilson, Louis (Bill) Blessing, Kyle Koehler, Susan Manchester, Nathan Manning, Terry Johnson, Shane Wilkin, Jerry Cirino, Andrew Brenner, Tim Schaffer, Mark Romanchuk, Tom Patton, Bill Reineke, Kristina Roegner, Jane Timken, Brian Chavez, Al Landis, Sandy O'Brien and Al Cutrona all voted to change what the voters chose.
Republican Sen. George Lang wasn't at session, thus, he didn't vote.
How can I find out who represents me?
To find your district's legislators, click here.
I have more questions! What should I do?
Contact me! Send an email to Morgan.Trau@wews.com with the subject line 'Marijuana question.'
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
