Ohio legalized recreational cannabis via the voters through an initiated statute more than a year ago, with four months of sales under state retailer’s belts.
A long-stalled overhaul of that relatively young recreational marijuana program might see new life next year, however, as outgoing Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) prepares for his likely speakership in the House.
“Many of us realized and believe that there were some fundamental flaws in the initiative,” Huffman said Wednesday.
On legalization eve last year, Huffman and 28 other senators in December voted to send a bill overhauling the state’s then-nonexistent program—from limiting potency of products to hiking the sales tax on them and retooling where those taxes go. The bill has not moved since, but Huffman said Wednesday its ideas aren’t dead. It offered a solid “framework for changes to the current statute,” he said.
Among the most major, Huffman said he’d like to see the legislature pare back home growth of cannabis plants. Under the current code, homes with two or more adults can cultivate, grow and possess as many as 12. That Senate bill slashed that in half.
“I do think that it's appropriate and the only reason that someone would be growing that much marijuana is to resell it,” he said.
He also said he believes lawmakers should pass marijuana and hemp provisions together, rather than in standalone bills, something that House lawmakers said earlier in the session was a sticking point.
A bill being debated during lame duck prohibits sales of delta-8 THC and other hemp-derived products and establishes criminal penalties for ignoring that prohibition. The cannabis industry generally wants a stricter mandate on unregulated offerings, like most hemp products, but not of its own already-regulated marijuana market.
Huffman has already served eight-year terms in both the House and Senate, the last four of them as president. Term-limited in the Senate, Huffman ran for and won his seat in the House in November, and then the caucus vote for the gavel two weeks later.
Sen. Rob McColley (R-Napoleon), who was elected to take the president’s position come January 2025, also negotiated and backed that 2023 overhaul.
