Ohio recreational marijuana sales have surpassed $76.2 million in less than two months.
The state’s total recreational marijuana sales was $76,280,490 as of Sept. 21, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Cannabis Control. Ohio has a 10% tax at the point of sales for every non-medical marijuana transaction.
Recreational marijuana sales started in Ohio on Aug. 6 and sales topped $11.5 million in less than a week. Fifty-seven percent of Ohioans voted to legalize marijuana last November through the passage of Issue 2, which also legalized home grow for Ohioans 21 and older with a cap of six plants per person and 12 plants per residence.
There have been 8,813 pounds of plant materials sold and 1,187,395 units of manufactured products, according to the DCC.
There are 124 dual-use marijuana dispensaries in Ohio, meaning they can sell both medical and non-medical marijuana, according to the division. Columbus has 13 dual-use marijuana dispensaries, Cincinnati has 10, Dayton has six and Cleveland has five.
Ohio has more than 107 local moratoriums prohibiting adult-use cannabis business as of Monday, according to Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
A proposed constitutional amendment in 2015 would have granted “exclusive rights” for commercial marijuana growth, cultivation and extraction to 10 predetermined parcels of land. It was defeated 64% to 36%.
Ohio voters will once again have the chance to legalize marijuana on Nov. 7 — eight years after Ohioans overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have made cannabis legal.
But there are some key differences between the two.
“Because of that, it does allow the legislature significantly more leeway to be able to change the details of the law with further legislation,” said Morgan Fox, political director for National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Another major difference between the two is the oligopoly — essentially a marijuana monopoly — that the defeated Issue 3 would have created. It would have granted “exclusive rights” for commercial marijuana growth, cultivation and extraction to ten predetermined parcels of land.
BUCKEYE LAKE, Ohio — AUGUST 17: Roger Davis of Grove City works to remove fan leaves from around the flowers before the marijuana plants are dried, August 17, 2023, at PharmaCann, Inc.’s cultivation and processing facility in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
“That absolutely rubbed people the wrong way, even supporters of legalization,” Fox said.
Don Wirtshafter, an Athens attorney who curates the Cannabis Museum in Ohio and supports marijuana legalization, calls himself one of the most vocal opponents of the failed Issue 3.
“2015 was a power play by basically one group of financiers who created 10 number corporations and the initiative would have given those anonymous corporations being powered by anonymous money the monopoly on growing and selling cannabis in Ohio,” he said.
Wirtshafter plans on voting yes on this year’s effort to legalize marijuana, going “from being a vocal naysayer to an enthusiastic yes voter.”
While marijuana legalization failed in 2015, Ohioans passed a constitutional amendment during the same election that prohibits the establishment of a “monopoly, oligopoly or cartel” in the state’s constitution.
“We couldn’t be more different than the 2015 constitutional amendment,” said Tom Haren, a spokesperson for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol. “We are not a monopoly-type framework. We are building off an existing medical marijuana infrastructure that already has hundreds of licenses.”
2015’s effort to legalize marijuana included Buddie the mascot, who looked like a superhero and had a marijuana bud for a head.
Buddie was supposed to drum up support from college students, but instead drew criticism from child advocates who worried the marketing was targeting kids.
“We’re not going to have any mascots,” Haren said.
What’s changed since 2015?
A lot has happened in the marijuana landscape since 2015.
BUCKEYE LAKE, Ohio — AUGUST 17: Marijuana plants in a flowering room where the artificial sunlight is adjusted to stimulate growth of the flowers, August 17, 2023, at PharmaCann, Inc.’s cultivation and processing facility in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
Only four states had legalized recreational marijuana at the time — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. Today, 23 states and Washington D.C. have legalized the recreational use and sale of cannabis.
Ohio legalized medical marijuana in 2016 and the first dispensary opened in 2019. 101 dispensaries have received certificates of operation and 34 have active provisional dispensary licenses as of Aug. 24, according to the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program.
“2015 was a lifetime ago in cannabis policy and since then we have seen states do it successfully, some better than others, but we’ve seen that our medical marijuana program has been successful,” Haren said.
Twenty-three cultivators in Ohio have received Level I provisional licenses and 21 have received certificates of operation. Fourteen have received Level II provisional licenses and 13 have received certificates of operation.
There have been 800,682 medical marijuana patient recommendations (a patient can have more than one recommendation), 384,705 patients have registered and 178,709 patients have both an active registration and an active recommendation, as of July 31.
Marijuana polling
A July Suffolk University/USA Today poll shows 59% of Ohio voters support Ohioans 21 and older buying and possessing marijuana. It showed 77% of Democrats, 63% of independents and 40% of Republicans support the issue.
The Suffolk University/USA Today poll surveyed 500 registered Ohio voters over the phone. Their margin of error is +/- 4.4 percentage points.
“The biggest contrast is that we are going to pass on the ballot in November,” Haren said.
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
House Bill 168 would rename Ohio’s Medical Marijuana Control Program to the Division of Marijuana Control and it would be in charge of regulating the medical marijuana and adult-use programs.
Ohioans 21 and older would be able to cultivate, purchase and possess marijuana if a bipartisan bill passes in the Ohio Statehouse.
State Reps. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, and Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, introduced House Bill 168 — also known as the Ohio Adult Use Act — earlier this month.
The bill would also allow conviction records for prior cultivation and possession offenses to be expunged.
“Adult-use is good for our economy, good for our justice system, and the right thing to do,” Weinstein said in a news release. “Ohioans are ready to legalize cannabis.”
HB 168 would put a 10% sales tax on adult-use cannabis products. Researchers at Ohio State University estimate the potential annual tax revenue generated from adult-use cannabis in Ohio ranges from $276 million to $374 million in year five of an operational adult-use cannabis market.
“It opens up a route for people to have access to cannabis without punishment, without losing their jobs, without losing child custody,” said Tim Johnson, CEO of Cannabis Safety First.
The bill would rename the Ohio’s Medical Marijuana Control Program to the Division of Marijuana Control and it would be in charge of regulating the medical marijuana and adult-use programs. The division would be housed within the Ohio Department of Commerce.
COLUMBUS, OH — JANUARY 03: Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord) speaks from the floor during opening day ceremonies of the 135th General Assembly of the State of Ohio, January 3, 2023, in the House Chamber at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
“Through the expansion of Ohio’s successful Medical Marijuana program to all Ohioans, we will not only be building upon best practices from around the country but utilizing the lessons learned here in Ohio,” Callender said in a news release.
Twenty-two states, including Michigan, and Washington, D.C. have legalized the recreational use of and sale of cannabis.
“It’s time for Ohio to act on this before we fall too much further behind our neighbors,” Weinstein said.
Legalizing marijuana would free up the judicial system from cannabis arrests and possession charges, Johnson said.
“It will allow law enforcement to centralize their resources around more harmful drugs and other priority incidents as far as criminal activity and so forth in their communities,” he said.
Expunged
The expungement piece of the bill would help people go through a quicker process to get their possession or trafficking charges erased.
“The whole principle behind all of this is … to open up our workforce pool … to allow people to return to being able to purchase homes, go to school, receive grants, have custody rights, all of that,” Johnson said.
One of the things the bill does is allow prosecutors to expunge low-level marijuana possession offenses. It also prevents arrests and convictions for possessing marijuana paraphernalia from appearing in Ohio’s criminal records.
Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol
The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol is collecting petition signatures to get a similar proposal on November’s ballot. The coalition needs to get 124,000 signatures from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties by the July 5 deadline.
Their proposal would legalize and regulate the cultivation, manufacturing, testing and sale of marijuana to Ohioans 21 and up. Ohioans 21 and older could home grow with a limit of six plants per person and 12 plants per residence, and it would impose a 10% tax at the point of sale for each transaction.
The proposal was submitted by citizens through an initiated statute, so it is not an amendment to the state’s constitution. Ohio’s Aug. 8 special election will ask voters if the state constitution should be harder to amend.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — APRIL 20: Tim Johnson, an Air Force veteran and retired law enforcement officer who has worked with Ohio lawmakers on cannabis legislation joins supporters of legalized marijuana, April 20, 2023, outside the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
Pricilla Harris, executive director of the Sensible Movement Coalition, is excited about the legislation to legalize marijuana, but said advocates favor the ballot proposal.
The ballot proposal has more protections for possession limits — 2.5 ounces compared to the bill’s 50 grams.
“We are still looking for patient protection, workforce protection for employers,” Harris said. “Unfortunately, we are just kind of lacking in that area when it comes to the bill.”
Between legislation and the ballot initiative, marijuana activists are confident weed will soon be legalized in Ohio.
“Either way you’re gonna see something happen this year in Ohio,” Johnson said.
Harris said it’s exciting to think about marijuana potentially being legalized.
“We would no longer be putting collateral damage on the residents of Ohio that are choosing cannabis as their medicine or their personal use,” she said.
Senate Bill 9
Senate Bill 9 — introduced by State Sens. Stephen Huffman, R-Tipp City, and Kirk Schuring, R-Canton — would expand Ohio’s medical marijuana program by adding more permissible forms of medical marijuana and adding to the list treatments for medical conditions.
It would also create a 13-member Medical Marijuana Oversight Commission that would oversee the Division of Marijuana Control within the Department of Commerce to oversee Ohio’s Medical Marijuana Program.
Currently, the Ohio Department of Commerce, the State Medical Board of Ohio, and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy oversee regulation and licensing in the marijuana program.
There are 355,368 patients that have registered for medical marijuana and 168,741 have both an active registration and an active recommendation as of March, according to the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program.
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the last five years reporting on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
