A campaign seeking to repeal a bill banning intoxicating hemp products and creating new marijuana-related criminal penalties has failed, the group announced on Wednesday.
Ohioans for Cannabis Choice failed to collect enough signatures to qualify ahead of a deadline on Thursday, spokesperson Dennis Willard said. Ohio law requires repeal campaigns to collect roughly 250,000 voter signatures, including minimum thresholds in at least 44 counties. The campaign didn’t specify which mark they failed to hit.
In a statement, Willard thanked the volunteers who helped with the effort. He blamed the “truncated time period” that the group had to collect the signatures. The group began collecting signatures in early February, after getting approval to do so by Attorney General Dave Yost, giving them about six weeks to collect the hundreds of thousands of signatures.
Yost previously rejected the group’s petition language, leaving less time for the group to gather signatures and block the law.
“Voters overwhelmingly supported legalizing cannabis in 2023. 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,” Willard said.
The development means that Senate Bill 56, which Gov. Mike DeWine signed in December, will go into effect on Friday.
The new law requires intoxicating hemp products – an industry term that describes cannabis drinks and other products that have proliferated under a loophole in federal law – to be sold in state dispensaries, like recreational marijuana. The bill marks the first time the industry has faced state regulation in Ohio.
DeWine has said the previous lack of regulation made intoxicating and unsafe products available to children, and expands THC availability beyond what Ohioans intended when they approved a recreational marijuana law in 2023.
In addition, it creates new criminal penalties around the possession of legally-purchased marijuana.
It also creates a path to expungement for low-level state marijuana convictions and releases to cities $96.5 million in tax revenue generated from Ohio’s first years of recreational sales. State officials have previously said they lacked legal ability to distribute those funds.
Before signing the bill, Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a section that would have created an exemption for THC beverages to be sold in bars and restaurants until the end of next year, when a federal intoxicating hemp ban takes effect.
Separately, a group of hemp businesses, including some involved with the repeal campaign, have filed a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court seeking to block the law from taking effect. That case is ongoing.
The hemp businesses, which include craft breweries that have pivoted into making THC drinks, have said the law will cost them financially and possibly force them to close.