The majority of Ohioans — like most Americans — support legalizing marijuana.
But you wouldn’t know it by observing the actions of some of Ohio’s GOP legislators.
For the second time in 14 months, Republican lawmakers are seeking to either roll back or rescind provisions in the state’s adult-use marijuana law — a law that was approved by 57% of voters.
Newly introduced Senate legislation seeks to make dozens of changes to the law.
These changes include raising sales taxes, imposing new restrictions on home cultivation, setting an arbitrary cap on the total number of marijuana retailers allowed statewide and providing new penalties for those who share their cannabis with other adults.
Marijuana law changes would cause damage
These proposed changes are not in the best interest of Ohioans. They include:
- Higher taxes on retail marijuana sales will drive more consumers away from legal stores and to the unregulated marketplace.
- Restricting home cultivation and imposing new penalties on consumers who share small amounts of cannabis with friends and family will only result in unnecessary criminal prosecutions for activities that most Ohioans believe should be legal.
- Redirecting taxes from popular social programs, such as addiction treatment, to the general fund is nothing more than a cash grab by lawmakers.
Most troublingly, these efforts are a slap in the face of voters.
Lawmakers had years to craft legislation regulating Ohio’s adult-use marijuana market.
They chose not to do so, instead leaving the decision up to the electorate. Legislators do not have the right to play Monday morning quarterback now simply because most Ohioans voted in a way they disapprove.
Ohio is following a trend
Lest you think lawmakers’ efforts to cancel their own voters’ views on marijuana policy are unique to Ohio, think again.
In 2018, Utah lawmakers repealed a voter-initiated medical cannabis law in its entirety just days after their constituents voted for it.
In South Dakota in 2021, then-Gov. Kristi Noem spearheaded a legal challenge repealing a marijuana legalization law that had been passed months earlier by 54% of voters.
That same year in Mississippi, a legal suit brought on behalf of a Republican mayor struck down a medical marijuana ballot measure — despite 74% of voters having approved it.
Following this past election, a former state senator in Nebraska filed multiple lawsuits seeking to nullify two voter-approved medical cannabis access initiatives — both of which passed with super-majority support.
And in Texas, council members in the cities of Bastrop and Lockhart recently set aside voter-approved municipal initiatives decriminalizing marijuana possession offenses. In both instances, local lawmakers said that they feared not doing so would result in retaliation from the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton.
For years, politicians have proclaimed that “Elections have consequences.”
Increasingly, however, when it comes to elections deciding marijuana policies, Republican lawmakers are seeking to ensure that they don’t.
Whether or not one personally supports or opposes cannabis legalization, these cynical and undemocratic tactics ought to be a cause of deep concern.
In a healthy democracy, those with competing visions on public policy vie for voters’ support and abide by their decisions. They don’t cast them aside simply because they’re sore losers.
A version of this op-ed , co-authored by NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano and NORML Political Director Morgan Fox, originally appeared in The Columbus Dispatch.
NORML’s legislative alert opposing Ohio’s Senate Bill 56 is available from NORML’s Take Action page . To date, over 13,000 people have shared this alert with their state lawmakers.
