A judge in Franklin County has for now blocked Gov. Mike DeWine’s short-term ban on “intoxicating” hemp.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Carl Aveni granted a 14-day restraining order in the case from the bench Tuesday, saying the state order was “antithetical” to the existing definition of hemp in the Ohio Revised Code.
“The court is concerned the governor is adding new definitions that don’t exist,” Aveni said Tuesday.
In a lawsuit filed last Wednesday, three Ohio-based hemp businesses argued DeWine was acting outside his authority by announcing a 90-day ban on hemp products with psychoactive ingredients, like delta-8 THC or THC-A. Aveni largely agreed.
“The separation of powers is not a matter of convenience,” he said as he issued his ruling. “The court urges the General Assembly to exercise its own, separate constitutional authority ... and to do so without delay.”
Just hours before the lawsuit was filed, DeWine signed an executive order that sought to redefine hemp, by excluding “intoxicating hemp” from the Ohio Revised Code’s definition of hemp, and declared an adulterated consumer product emergency. That emergency declaration gave retailers statewide until Tuesday morning to clear their shelves of any products fitting that definition.
“It is absolutely absurd that a 14-year-old, a 13-year-old can walk into a store and buy this stuff. It’s never what anybody intended,” DeWine said. “I don’t think you’ll find one legislator who will tell you that it was intended, so yeah, I went back to our lawyers.”
Since late 2023, DeWine has made it clear he wants legislators to regulate intoxicating hemp products. It has been mostly touch and go on how to handle the gray area the federal government created in 2018, when Congress removed THC products with less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC from the definition of marijuana. Most products contain psychoactive ingredients that still induce a high, but are legal at any age.
In early 2024, however, DeWine said he could not “do anything without action by the state legislature.” He wrote in a statement Tuesday that Aveni’s ruling “underscore(s) our continued desire to work with the General Assembly.”
