Ohio Initiative Campaign to Undo Hemp Ban, Pot Law Changes Gets Underway

State Attorney General Dave Yost (D) this week cleared the petition summary language for an initiative that would undo a ban on intoxicating hemp product sales except in licensed marijuana retail outlets and a tightening of the state's marijuana legalization law passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine (R) in December.

The hemp products ban and the legal marijuana restrictions were part of Senate Bill 56, whose passage was the culmination of a year-long effort by lawmakers and the governor to rein in the intoxicating hemp industry unleashed by the end of the federal hemp ban in 2018 and to tighten the screws on the voter-approved 2023 state marijuana legalization.

The initiative from activists organized as Ohioans for Cannabis Choice would repeal sections 1, 2, and 3 of SB 56 authorizing the changes to the state's cannabis laws.

"Full steam ahead. We’re going to be hitting the streets, collecting signatures all across Ohio because people are angry and want to sign on the line to vote no on S.B. 56 to stop government overreach, no to closing 6,000 small businesses and killing thousands of jobs, and no to denying consumers the right to purchase products they want," said Dennis Willard, spokesperson for Ohioans for Cannabis Choice.

In addition to the ban on intoxicating hemp product sales, SB 566 creates a public smoking ban and a ban on smoking in cars. It also makes it a crime to have an "open container" of marijuana, which could lead to prosecutions of people who have a bag of edibles that has ever been opened. The new law also requires that marijuana products be kept in the same package they were bought in and criminalizes the possession of marijuana bought outside of state lines.

And it removes discrimination protections for housing, employment, and organ donation.

"That is absolutely against the will of the people who said that we think cannabis should be legal in Ohio," Willard said about SB 56.

Attorney General Yost gave the initiative his official approval by certifying its title and summary language, but he took pains to make clear that he was not giving it his political approval: "My certification. . . should not be construed as an affirmation of the enforceability and constitutionality of the referendum petition," Yost wrote in the letter certifying the petition.

Now that they have cleared this initial hurdle, Ohioans for Cannabis Choice needs to come up with about 250,000 valid voter signatures to qualify for the November ballot. They must get signatures equaling 3 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last election in 44 of the state's 88 counties, and 6 percent statewide. They have until July1 to do so.