COLUMBUS, Ohio – If the full legislature would have passed a recreational marijuana bill this month, medical cannabis dispensaries would have been ready to sell product for adult use by early January, Gov. Mike DeWine said Friday morning.
The General Assembly is determined to make changes to the initiated statute legalizing adult-use cannabis that voters approved Nov. 7. The bill preferred by DeWine and passed by the Ohio Senate would have allowed the state’s existing 114 licensed medical dispensaries to sell to Ohioans aged 21 and older while the state establishes regulations and licenses for the about 230 additional dispensaries permitted under the initiated statute.
READ MORE: General Assembly expected to go home for the holidays, leaving recreational marijuana law untouched
The Senate passed House Bill 86 on Dec. 6 and sent it to the House, which adjourned for the year without acting on it. Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens said there’s plenty of time to fine tune the initiated statute, since adult-use dispensaries won’t be ready until late 2024.
The House, instead, prefers legislation that it says is more faithful to what voters passed in November. House Bill 354 would maintain the number of home grow plants at 12 per household, instead of the Senate’s six, and would keep THC potency levels at no less than 35% for flower and no less than 90% for extracts. Dispensary point-of-sale taxes would also stay at 10%, which is the same as in the initiated statute and lower than the Senate’s proposed 15%.
During a Friday morning event with reporters, DeWine said he was disappointed that the House adjourned for the year without addressing marijuana. DeWine wants dispensaries to be able to sell product immediately, believing this is the way to head off an explosion in the illicit market.
Currently, Ohio adults aged 21 and older are allowed to possess 2.5 ounces of most forms of marijuana, except for extracts, of which they are allowed to posses roughly 0.5 ounces. Adults are allowed to grow up to six plants each or 12 per household. But there’s nowhere to legally purchase marijuana for now, until regulators stand up rules and licensing for the dispensaries – unless the legislature acts on the proposal to allow immediate adult-use sales from medical dispensaries.
“We could have jumpstarted this by having the places that sell medical marijuana flip over,” DeWine said. “So we could have been started, (Ohio Department of Commerce Director Sherry Maxfield) tells me she thinks by early, early January. We could have been selling in Ohio. We could have had a system in place that we put together.”
However, the Senate passed HB 86 with a simple majority, meaning the bill would have gone into effect in approximately 90 days after DeWine signed it. For any bill to go into effect immediately, it needs to pass with supermajorities in both chambers and an emergency clause.
“We’re in this wild west, no-man’s-land, where the expectation is here, reasonably, based on what was passed,” he said.
In other news, Maxfield – the Department of Commerce director– announced Thursday that she named James Canepa as the first superintendent of the Division of Cannabis Control. The division is charged with safety and regulation of both medical and recreational marijuana, according to a statement from the Department of Commerce.
The initiated statute specified that all marijuana regulation was to come under a newly formed Division of Cannabis Control.
Meantime, the state was in the process of consolidating regulation of the medical program, most of which had been handled by the Department of Commerce and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy. Growers, processors and testing labs have been regulated by the commerce department but dispensaries were regulated by the pharmacy board. DeWine had requested the consolidation in his budget recommendations to the legislature last spring, saying it would be a more efficient way to oversee the program. The General Assembly passed the recommendation in the budget bill in late June.
READ MORE: Medical marijuana: Ohio lawmakers eye changes to regulation of dispensaries
For the past six years, Canepa was superintendent of the Division of Liquor Control, which also falls under the commerce department, and provided oversight for Ohio Liquor (OHLQ).
A statement from the Department of Commerce said Canepa has a track record of implementing effective solutions that earned him the trust of the liquor industry and consumers.
Under his recent leadership, the department modernized the state’s liquor inventory control system and introduced retail innovations such as barrel programs and bottle lotteries. In recent weeks, Canepa has advised the Medical Marijuana Control Program on rulemaking options related to the new initiated statute.
Canepa’s new role will be effective on January 1.
Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.