Ohio Campaign To Block Marijuana And Hemp Restrictions Fails To Collect Enough Signatures For Ballot Referendum

*“Marijuana will be re-criminalized in Ohio, businesses will close, workers
will lose their jobs, and consumers will be denied their right to products
they should be able to purchase.”*

*By Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal*

Opponents of Ohio Republican lawmakers’ attempt to ban intoxicating hemp
products and change the state’s voter-passed recreational marijuana law
failed to collect enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot this
year to block it.

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice would not say how many signatures they
gathered. They needed to collect 248,092 signatures and also needed to
gather 3 percent of an individual county’s gubernatorial turnout in 44 of
Ohio’s 88 counties to get on the November 3 ballot.

“Unfortunately, we were not able to overcome a truncated time period to
give voters the chance to say no to government overreach,” Dennis Willard,
spokesperson for Ohioans for Cannabis Choice said in a statement.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) initially rejected the referendum’s
summary language in January, but approved it in early February after
Ohioans for Cannabis Choice made changes to the language.

The plan was to submit the collected signatures to Ohio Secretary of State
Frank LaRose on Thursday for him to verify the signatures. This was the
deadline to submit signatures since Ohio Senate Bill 56 takes effect Friday
and it will ban intoxicating hemp products—including THC-infused beverages.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed the bill into law in December after he had
been urging the lawmakers to do something about intoxicating hemp products
for the past nearly two years.

On the federal level, Congress voted in November to ban products that
contain 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container when they voted to reopen
the government. Previously, the 2018 Farm Bill said hemp can be grown
legally if it contains less than 0.3 percent THC.

There is a one-year implementation delay for the federal hemp ban, but
states can create their own regulatory framework before then.

Ohio’s new law will change Ohio’s marijuana law by reducing the THC levels
in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90 percent down to a
maximum of 70 percent, cap THC levels in adult-use flower to 35 percent,
and prohibit smoking in most public places.

It will prohibit possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original
packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana from another state back
to Ohio. The legislation also requires drivers to store marijuana in the
trunk of their car while driving.

“Marijuana will be re-criminalized in Ohio, businesses will close, workers
will lose their jobs, and consumers will be denied their right to products
they should be able to purchase,” Willard said in a statement.

Ohioans voted to legalize marijuana in 2023, recreational sales started in
August 2024, and sales totaled more than $836 million in 2025.

“Voters overwhelmingly supported legalizing cannabis in 2023,” Willard said
in a statement. “It only makes sense that Gov. DeWine and state lawmakers
should go back and ask those voters if they want to ban hemp and
re-criminalize marijuana. We know, and our elected leaders know, the answer
would be a resounding no.”

Ohio Cannabis Coalition and the Ohio Cannabis Coalition and Coalition to
Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol—the group behind Issue 2 on the 2023 ballot—opposed
the attempted referendum.

Referendums are rare and the last one that passed in Ohio was when voters
overturned an anti-collective bargaining law in 2011.

*This story was first published by Ohio Capital Journal.*

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