Ohio House brings proposal allowing stores to sell THC drinks, but bans other hemp products
Flowers of hemp plants that contain less that 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) the primary psychoactive substance in marijuana. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.)
The Ohio House Republicans are set to introduce legislation that would allow stores and breweries to sell THC-infused drinks, but prohibit all other forms of “intoxicating hemp” products.
Also in the proposal, exclusively shared with WEWS, cities would get their long-awaited tax revenue from marijuana dispensary sales. This comes as a court blocked Gov. Mike DeWine’s hemp ban.
Years of negotiating on marijuana and hemp policy — with nothing to show for it.
After nearly two years, DeWine took matters into his own hands last week, signing an executive order temporarily banning what he calls “intoxicating hemp,” low-level THC that can be bought at gas stations and smoke shops. It can look like regular candy and has no age requirement to buy it.
“Frankly, the legislature had not taken action,” DeWine said.
On Oct. 14, a judge temporarily blocked it.
“I’m still hopeful that the legislature will come in and actually take action,” DeWine said.
Each legislative leader agreed that kids should not have access to THC.
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, pointed to the different opinions on how marijuana and hemp should be regulated when asked why garnering caucus agreement was so difficult.
“There are three groups: the folks who believe that marijuana should be legalized and regulated… There are other folks who believe that the hemp products should be on equal standing with everything that happened in the initiated statute…,” Huffman said. “And then you have folks, like me, who are prohibitionists, who don’t think it should be legalized at all and it should be rare. I would say the prohibitionists have largely lost this discussion.”
The speaker has been trying to wrangle 64 other House Republicans to agree on THC regulations. Finally, a deal was crafted between the two chambers this summer, but the Senate pulled out at the last minute.
Now, the House is ready to try again.
“It’s going to be a very thoughtful and targeted bill,” said state Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, in an exclusive interview on Friday.
State Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord) speaks from the floor of the Ohio House. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish only with original article.)
Callender is the resident marijuana expert in the House. In an amendment to Senate Bill 56, which would wipe the vast majority of the existing legislation, the new policy allows stores and breweries to sell THC drinks and regulates the advertisements so they don’t appeal to kids.
“It will have a pretty complete ban other than the beverages, but it’s a temporary ban while some rules are being able to be developed, so that will give more time,” Callender said, adding this isn’t necessarily the final draft. “But in the meantime, it will take the high THC content stuff off the shelves, at least temporarily.”
The bill will deal with more than just hemp.
“On the marijuana side, making sure the tax dollars get to the local governments the way we had promised, the way the voters had promised, and the way local governments had expected,” Callender said.
Right now, cities with dispensaries aren’t getting tax revenue from sales. The House has been trying to get them their money, but Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) wants to change where the money goes.
“The Senate’s already spoken,” McColley said. “It’s really, at this point, we just got to see what the House is willing to do.”
The Senate pulled out of the summer agreement, in part, due to the debate on taxes.
Asked why a bill exclusively talking about hemp couldn’t be introduced without concepts deemed controversial by the Senate, Callendar said that’s not off the table.
“Well, I think we may still end up going there if we have to,” he said. “If we put it all together, it may be harder for the Senate to say no to some of the marijuana things that we feel strongly about.”
Lawmakers planned to introduce the amended bill this week, and the lawmaker hopes to send it over to the Senate on Wednesday.
“They can either accept it or not accept it,” Callender said. “If they don’t, it’ll go to conference committee, and it will force the chambers to work the issues out.”
The Senate’s leading marijuana expert, state Sen. Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City), said the House wasn’t sharing the legislation with them until this week.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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