Advocates are fighting back, launching a referendum to restore hemp product access and voter-approved marijuana freedoms.
Late last year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed into law Senate Bill 56, which bans intoxicating hemp products from being sold anywhere other than marijuana dispensaries. The measure also tightens the state's voter-approved marijuana legalization law by making it a crime to possess marijuana purchased outside the state and limiting home grows to six plants. It is set to go into effect in March.
Last week, a group of hemp and marijuana advocates took the initial step toward overturning that law. Organized as a political action committee, Ohioans for Cannabis Choice, they turned in petitions with more than a thousand signatures to kick off the process of getting a referendum on the November 2026 ballot. The petition calls for the removal of the sections of SB 56 that restrict hemp products and impose new limits on marijuana possession and cultivation.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and Attorney General Dave Yost (R) each have 10 days to decide whether to certify the petitions. If they certify the petitions, the campaign will then have until mid-March to come up with 248,092 valid voter signatures from at least 44 of the state's 88 counties to qualify the measure for November 2026.
While the bill submitted to Gov. DeWine mirrored the recent federal government ban on intoxicating hemp products by delaying it for a year, the governor used his line item veto to strike the section granting an exception to hemp beverages, saying it would only confuse the matter.
"SB 56 forcefully defies the will of the voters of Ohio, who spoke clearly on this issue, and denies the people of Ohio the freedom to use these products for their personal use," Ohioans for Cannabis Choice spokesman Dennis Willard said in a statement accompanying the petitions. "We are launching a referendum campaign to go directly to the voters. We believe voters will say no to government overreach, no to closing 6,000 small businesses and pink-slipping thousands of workers across the state, and no to once again recriminalizing hemp and marijuana," Willard said.
The Columbus company Pilot Canning produces and cans beverages including water, tea, soda, and THC seltzers for both in- and out-state businesses. THC drinks make up about 15 percent of his business. Its owner, Michael Capace, said that while he supports regulating such beverages, SB 56 is a bridge too far.
"We were totally on board with the idea of having milligram caps and preventing children and such from getting these beverages," Capace said. "It is really putting a limit on the kind of things we can create and supplying customers with the beverages they really want."
The Ohio Healthy Alternatives Association has also come out in support of the referendum: "We are confident that Ohio voters will stand in support of local businesses and their right to provide safe and regulated hemp products," the group said in a statement last week.
But the Ohio Cannabis Coalition (OHCANN), which represents members of the state's legal marijuana industry, says it stands behind SB 56.
"With Governor DeWine's signature on Senate Bill 56, Ohio is demonstrating leadership as one of the first states in the nation to act following the closure of the Farm Bill loophole," executive director David Bowling said in a statement. "By closing the unregulated, dangerous intoxicating hemp market this law reflects a clear commitment to public safety and reinforces Ohio's responsible, well-regulated cannabis market."
Politics can make for strange bedfellows. Ohio's Republican political establishment has been a staunch foe of cannabis law reforms, with the legislature repeatedly refusing to take up marijuana legalization but eager to try to chip away at the will of the voters once they voted to legalize it in 2023. Yet the state's legal marijuana industry finds itself in bed with the very officials who would do it in if they had their way.