This year, as Ohio’s still-young recreational marijuana industry bloomed, the Ohio House and Senate negotiated and finalized its omnibus bill changing state cannabis statute.
It marked the second full year Ohio adults could have, grow and smoke cannabis. November data from the Ohio Department of Commerce showed non-medical sales nearing $1 billion. Licensed dispensaries have sold more than 17 million pounds of plant and products to non-medical customers, according to department data.
As the industry continued to find its footing, the legislature went back and forth over changes in fits and starts.
“There’s an awful lot of societal costs that are going to have to be borne by the legalization of marijuana,” Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said in January, talking about taxing changes he saw as fit.
Consumers and legalization advocates, like South Columbus resident Tiffany Wedekind, said it felt like lawmakers weren’t listening to them.
“They’re not really taking into consideration what it’s being used for,” Wedekind said in an interview, ”and how many other things that are regulated and legal that are killing people like tobacco, cigarettes, alcohol, pharmaceuticals.”
By early June, negotiators in the House and Senate said they were close to consensus, which then went up in smoke.
“I just told my caucus, we’re not going to just say ‘okay’ because we’re so anxious to pass the marijuana bill, which I’d like to get it done, but we’re not going to give up House priorities to do that,” House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said in June.
Efforts to strictly regulate so-called “intoxicating” hemp were rolled into Senate Bill 56 by then, but lawmakers left for their annual summer recess without advancing anything touching THC.
In October, DeWine took matters into his own hands—or at least, he tried.
DeWine’s office declared a 90-day consumer state of emergency, pausing sales of a slew of those mostly unregulated products containing cannabinoid derivatives, like delta-8 THC and THC-A.
“It is absolutely absurd that a 14-year-old, a 13-year-old can walk into a store and buy this stuff,” DeWine said. “It’s never what anybody intended, when the hemp law was passed, it wasn’t what the legislature intended.”
He told retailers selling intoxicating hemp—like gas stations, smoke stores and holistic wellness stores—to clear their shelves.
Some members of the legislature, like Rep. Tex Fischer (R-Boardman), questioned whether DeWine was acting within a governor’s authority.
“The governor has been clear historically on this, he does not have the authority to make these changes, and then, somehow, in the very recent months, he discovered that he did,” Fischer said.
Hours after DeWine signed his order, retailers sued. A judge in Franklin County sided with them, issuing a short-term block. But that, and a ban tucked into the bill ending the federal government shutdown, brought lawmakers back to bargaining. The final, 100-plus-page version of SB 56 emerged in the wee hours of the last session before Thanksgiving.
“It’s after midnight,” Fischer said. “A lot of accommodations were made to get to the point where it was the will of our caucus to proceed.”
Democrats, like Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood), ultimately voted ‘no’ on SB 56, mostly over measures regulating marijuana, saying they went against the will of Ohioans who voted for it in 2023.
“This final agreement between the Republicans in the House and the Republicans in the Senate, what you see are elements of them being totally out of touch with everyday Ohioans,” Antonio said.
They took issue with it recriminalizing possession in some circumstances. The bill makes it a state crime to store edibles outside their original packaging or possess any products bought legally in another state.
The final version of SB 56 that lawmakers sent DeWine banned most intoxicating hemp, but gave hemp-derived THC and CBD beverages more leeway, mirroring the timeline of recent federal action against hemp.
Last Friday, however, DeWine line-item vetoed that carve out for drinks, saying it would cause more confusion. With his signature, SB 56 is set to take effect in March 2026.
