Two Republican state lawmakers in Ohio have introduced a bill to revamp the state’s medical marijuana laws that would create a new state agency to oversee the program and allow more patients to use cannabis medicinally. The measure, Senate Bill 9, was introduced by state Senators Steve Huffman and Kirk Schuring on January 11 and on Tuesday was referred to a legislative committee for consideration. The bill is similar to another proposal from the last legislative session, Senate Bill 261, that failed to gain approval in the Ohio House of Representatives after passing in the Senate in December 2021. 

Both pieces of legislation attempt to update Ohio’s medical marijuana law, which was passed by the General Assembly and signed into law in 2016. Under the new bill, a new state agency, the Division of Marijuana Control, would be created as part of the Ohio Department of Commerce to regulate the state’s medical marijuana program. The legislation also creates a 13-member commission responsible for oversight of the new agency and the medical program. Under current law, the state’s medical marijuana program is overseen by the Ohio Department of Commerce, the State Medical Board of Ohio and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy. 

“What we’ve found is that many of the growers want to expand and grow more,” Huffman said in a statement quoted by local media. “There’s more growers, there’s more demand. They put an application into the Department of Commerce, and it sits there for 18 months, two years. Hopefully this takes the bureaucracy out of this and streamlines things and make it a better-functioning industry.”

Ohio Bill Adds New Qualifying Conditions

Senate Bill 9 would also add autism spectrum disorder, arthritis, migraines, chronic muscle spasms and opioid use disorder to the state’s list of medical conditions that qualify a patient to use cannabis medicinally. Currently, the list of qualifying conditions includes more than two dozen serious medical conditions including cancer, chronic pain, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, PTSD and terminal illnesses.

The measure also allows medical marijuana use by patients who have other debilitating medical conditions that can be treated with medicinal cannabis, as determined by their physician. The earlier bill had a similar provision, allowing patients to use medical cannabis if a doctor decides that “the patient’s symptoms may reasonably be expected to be relieved from medical marijuana.”

In a committee hearing on Senate Bill 9 held on Tuesday, Huffman and Schuring told their colleagues that many medical marijuana patients in Ohio are crossing state lines to obtain cannabis from neighboring states with more liberal marijuana laws. As of Januray 1, ore than half of the more than 320,000 patients who have registered in the history of Ohio’s medical marijuana program, only about 164,000 had an active doctor’s recommendation and patient registration, according to information from state regulators.

“The largest dispenser for Ohioans is in Michigan,” Huffman said in testimony Tuesday. “We need to turn that around, and make it more friendly, so people come here and they have a safe, viable product.”

Senate Bill 261 also would have allowed the state’s licensed medical marijuana cultivators to expand their growing operations. Although the provisions to increase the square footage of allowable cultivation space are not included in the new bill, Huffman said he is open to amending the legislation to add the increased growing area.

“In my discussions with Sen. Schuring, we felt this would be a positive move and positive change for the industry,” Huffman said. “At the same time hopefully members of the House will be comfortable with it.”

Recreational Marijuana Proposal Under Consideration

Ohio lawmakers are also considering a bill that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Frank LaRose reintroduced the proposal, which would legalize marijuana for adults 21 and older and levy a 10% tax on commercial cannabis products. Activists had hoped the measure would appear on the ballot for the November midterm election, but legal challenges caused delays that led to an agreement with state officials to revisit the issue this year. If the state legislature does not approve the measure within four months, the Coalition To Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group spearheading the legalization effort, can collect signatures to put the proposal before the voters in the fall.

Despite the adult-use cannabis legalization bill, Huffman, who is a physician, said that he is still interested in improving the state’s medical marijuana program. If recreational marijuana is legalized, he said it would create an environment without “much of a medical marijuana industry.”

“This bill, to me, is not so much about the ballot initiative, but to make the industry as best as we can,” Huffman said.

Trent Woloveck, the chief strategy officer of Jushi, a vertically integrated, multistate cannabis operator that last week opened Beyond Hello Cincinnati, the company’s first medical marijuana dispensary in Ohio, called on state lawmakers to approve Senate Bill 9 in a statement to High Times.

“If passed, SB 9 will make safe, tested medical cannabis products accessible to more Ohioans by expanding qualifying conditions, authorizing additional administration forms and codifying mechanisms to allow responsible, incremental industry growth,” said Woloveck. “Ultimately, the changes proposed in SB 9 will facilitate a stable supply chain, reduce product prices and generally benefit Ohio patients.”

Senate Bill 9 has been referred to the Senate General Government Committee for consideration. At a hearing on Tuesday, the Republican chair of the panel, Senator Michael Rulli, said that the committee would move quickly on the bill.

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On the outside, they looked like dehumidifiers. A look inside the appliances revealed more than a million bucks worth of contraband. That was the haul intercepted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers––and their trusty narcotics detector dog, Bruno––in Cincinnati over the weekend.

The dog apparently alerted the officers “to a shipment of dehumidifiers, with each one containing vacuum sealed bags containing marijuana” on Saturday, the agency said.

The shipments arrived in the port of Cincinnati “and while conducting canine operations, Bruno alerted to these dehumidifiers that were arriving from Ontario, Canada.”

“Officers inspected the first shipment and discovered vacuum sealed bags hidden inside the dehumidifier cases. Officers tested the substance which was positive for marijuana. Officers then inspected all 12 dehumidifiers and discovered that each one had concealed bags containing marijuana-413 pounds in total,” Customs and Border Protection said in a press release.

CBP said that the shipment was “heading to a company based in Great Britain and the illicit narcotics had an approximate street value of $1.10 million.”

LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, the director of field operations in CBP’s Chicago Field Office, praised the work of Bruno.

“Our canine teams are an invaluable asset to the CBP enforcement strategy,” Sutton-Burke said in the press release. “These interdictions are a testament to the hard work, dedication and training these teams employ on a daily basis protecting America.”

The agency “emphasized that transnational criminals are desperate and will take any measures within their reach to get their illegal narcotics across our borders.”

“Our officers have been trained to identify and stop shipments that pose a threat to our nation and our international counterparts. We are committed to the CBP mission and continue to assist our law enforcement allies around the world,” Richard Gillespie, Cincinnati’s port director, said in the press release.

While recreational cannabis has been legal in a growing number of states––and Democrats in Washington continue to flirt with the idea of ending prohibition on the federal level––the U.S. Customs and Border Protection continues to intercept weed on the U.S. border and in the country’s ports.

In April, shortly after New Mexico became the latest state to legalize adult-use cannabis, the Customs and Border Protection issued a stern warning to anyone carrying weed in the state.

“Border Patrol agents have drug enforcement authority. Marijuana is still a prohibited drug under Schedule 1 of The United States Controlled Substances Act. Therefore, U.S. Border Patrol agents will continue to take appropriate enforcement action against those who are encountered in possession of marijuana anywhere in the United States,” the agency said at the time.

Earlier this month, Border Patrol agents in Texas “seized over 200 pounds of marijuana in two separate events within five hours,” the agency said.

CBP said that agents “assigned to Bike Patrol observed multiple subjects carrying bundles away from the Rio Grande in Escobares [Texas].”

“Additional agents responded and interdicted just as the smugglers attempted to load the narcotics into an awaiting Chevrolet Tahoe. The Tahoe departed the area as the smugglers abandoned the bundles and absconded back toward the river. Agents seized three bundles of marijuana weighing 115 pounds and valued at 92,000 USD,” CBP said in its press release.

Then, shortly after midnight the following day, “agents observed a group of ten subjects walking away from the Rio Grande south of Cuevitas,” ultimately discovering 90 pounds worth of cannabis.

“One of the Mexican nationals, along with the narcotics, was turned over to the Texas Department of Public Safety to face state charges,” the agency said in the press release.

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