Politics
Ohio Senate Passes Bill To Scale Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law By Reducing Home Grow And Adding New Penalties
The Ohio Senate has approved a bill to make significant changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana law—by halving the number of plants adults could grow, adding new criminal penalties and removing select social equity provisions, among other revisions.
After the legislation from Sen. Steve Huffman (R) moved through the Senate General Government Committee earlier in the day, the full Senate passed the measure in a 23-9 vote on Wednesday. It now heads to the House.
“Senate Bill 56 is a great bill because it’s reasonable, appropriate, it cuts down on the illicit marijuana market and it’s truly about protection and safety of children,” Huffman said on the floor, adding that “we have never known exactly why the voters voted for the initiated statute.”
“We’ll never know—but we do know that they should have known at least that they were voting to put it into the revised code—not in the Constitution, but in the Ohio Revised Code,” he said, defending the legislature’s move to amend the initiative. “Voters were clear in their desire to access safe, accessible adult-use marijuana. Senate Bill 56 respects those pleas.”
Sen. Bill DeMora (D) spoke in opposition to the bill, arguing that it “goes against the will of the voters and will kill the adult industry in Ohio.”
“In my eyes at least, a top priority of any legislation dealing with marijuana should be to preserve the will of the people. The people made their will known,” he said. “The sponsor doesn’t think that we know what people were voting for, but I have a good idea after all the testimony we’ve had in the last several years about marijuana.”
“They wanted higher THC limits. They wanted the ability to grow 12 plants at their home. They wanted level three craft growers. They wanted common sense public smoking restrictions. And they wanted taxes to help the municipalities addiction and substance abuse efforts and those that were affected by criminalization,” he said. “This bill does none of those things. In fact, it makes all those provisions worse.”
Sen. Louis Blessing (R) voiced support for the proposal, but said he felt the fact that the legislature was having this debate about revising the law demonstrates why lawmakers should’ve seen the writing on the wall and moved to enact legalization themselves, before it became a ballot issue.
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Willis Blackshear (D) sharply criticized the legislation, arguing that “these changes go beyond the scope of ensuring the proper implementation of legal cannabis and we are into the territory now of ‘we know better than you, and we’re going to do whatever we want.'”
“The implementation of Issue 2 has been largely successful and consistent with what voters intended,” he said. “To gut adult-use now based on concerns that have not materialized since the bill’s implementation is ridiculous. How can we say that we are representing our constituents by voting in favor of this bill? This is a slap in the face to Ohioans.”
The Senate vote comes about a week after the General Government Committee held a hearing on the proposal, taking testimony and adopting a substitute version. The panel then approved an amended version hours before it went to the floor.
As revised and passed, the bill would clarify that THC limits per package don’t apply to products intended for combustion, prevent people with felony convictions from obtaining a marijuana license and restore the ability of level two cultivators to expand their operations to 15,000 square feet.
In its initial form, the bill would have raised the state’s excise tax on marijuana products from 10 percent to 15 percent and also changed how taxes are redistributed to local governments. But those tax provisions were removed at the previous hearing in light of separate plans to adjust the tax rate in broader budget legislation.
Democratic members of the committee offered a series of amendments, several of which sought to dial back some of the proposed changes to the voter-approved law. All were defeated by the panel’s Republican majority, however.
For example, the substitute approved in committee would lower the maximum household plant limit for home cultivation from 12 to six. An amendment was offered to “compromise” by raising that to nine.
Huffman made the motion to table that amendment, saying that “this bill is all about being reasonable and appropriate,” and the legislation “initially started with two plants, and we compromised up to six and I believe that continuing as six is reasonable and appropriate.”
Under current law as approved by voters in 2023, adults can grow up to 12 cannabis plants at home.
Reform advocates oppose the legislation because, in addition to halving the home cultivation limit, they say it would recriminalize the sharing of cannabis between adults, smoking or vaping in someone’s own back yard and transporting unopened edibles in a vehicle. It also would eliminate non-discrimination protections to ensure cannabis consumers aren’t denied child custody, access to medical care and public benefits.
While the bill would lower the THC content cap for cannabis extracts from 90 percent to 70 percent, the substitute version committee members ultimately approved grants the Division of Cannabis Control the authority to move that back up to 90 percent.
Other Democratic amendments that were defeated in committee on Wednesday include proposals to restore a social equity and jobs program that the bill seeks to eliminate, reimburse people for the costs of getting cannabis records expunged, maintain original language around public smoking rules and remove a 350 dispensary license cap.
The committee separately shot down amendment that would have allowed localities to put to a vote an additional three percent tax to fund local art programs and increased the canopy space for all three levels of cultivators.
The bill as passed also stipulates that the state Division of Cannabis Control (DCC) would no longer be required to establish rules allowing for marijuana deliveries and online purchases.
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, the ACLU of Ohio put out a call to action, urging people to contact their representatives and express opposition to the proposed changes to that existing law.
🚨Ohio’s adult-use cannabis laws are on the chopping block.
🗣️SB 56 is starred for a committee vote at 9am, which means it could pass the full Senate this afternoon.
📲This fight is far from over and we need your help in pushing back: https://t.co/nsOZ8Fg92k pic.twitter.com/vXxL7opqZl
— ACLU of Ohio (@acluohio) February 26, 2025
While the increased excise tax rate was removed from the latest version of SB 56, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has separately indicated plans to double the double the current tax rate via the budget process, raising it to 20 percent.
Certain Democrats have so far indicated a willingness to finesse the cannabis law, but they’ve said Huffman’s proposed changes to provisions around issues such as home cultivation are a bridge too far.
Sen. Casey Weinstein (D), for example, has said there’s “definitely bipartisan support for protections in marketing to keep kids safe and sensible limitations on where you can use cannabis,” but not for undermining fundamental components of what voters approved.
The bill’s advancement comes as Ohio’s GOP House speaker seems to have changed his tune on the state’s marijuana law somewhat, walking back his previously stated plan to undermine provisions of the voter-approved initiative such as home cultivation rights.
Conflicts between Senate and House Republican leadership near the end of the last session played a key role in stalling amendment proposals. It’s unclear if the chambers will be able to reach consensus this round, especially as the market continues to evolve and consumers adopt to the law.
House Speaker Matt Huffman (R), who is the cousin of SB 56’s sponsor and previously served as Senate president, said that while he continues to oppose the reform measure voters passed, he doesn’t believe anyone in the legislature “realistically is suggesting that we’re going to repeal the legalization of marijuana.”
“I’m not for it. I wasn’t for the casinos coming to Ohio, either. But there’s lots of stuff that’s part of the Constitution and the law that are there that I don’t like,” he said.
To that end, the speaker indicated he’s no longer interested in pursuing plans to broadly undermine the cannabis law, despite having backed legislation as a Senate leader last session that would have decreased allowable THC levels in state-legal cannabis products, reduced the number of plants that adults could grow at home and increased costs for consumers at dispensaries.
Initially, changes backed by Matt Huffman last year would have eliminated home cultivation rights entirely for Ohio adults and criminalized all cannabis obtained anywhere other than a state-licensed retailer.
While some Democratic lawmakers have previously indicated that they may be amenable to certain revisions, such as putting certain cannabis tax revenue toward K-12 education, other supporters of the voter-passed legalization initiative are firmly against letting legislators undermine the will of the majority that approved it.
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Meanwhile, as 2024 came to a close with the new marijuana legalization law in effect, Ohio officials announced the state saw adult-use cannabis sales exceed $242 million.
As the 2025 session gets underway, lawmakers are also expected to consider key changes to the state’s hemp laws. In November, legislators took testimony on a proposal that would ban intoxicating hemp products in the state. Steve Huffman, the sponsor of the marijuana revision bill, introduced that proposal after the governor called on lawmakers to regulate or ban delta-8 THC products.
As the 2025 session gets underway, lawmakers are also expected to consider key changes to the state’s hemp laws. In November, legislators took testimony on a proposal that would ban intoxicating hemp products in the state. Huffman, the sponsor of the marijuana revision bill, introduced that proposal after the governor called on lawmakers to regulate or ban delta-8 THC products.
Separately, despite legalization of adult-use cannabis in Ohio, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’s (VA) Cincinnati health center issued a reminder last summer that government doctors are still prohibited from recommending medical cannabis to veterans—at least as long as it remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
