A group of medicinal cannabis operators and advocates in Ohio have joined forces in “strong opposition” to a bill that would dramatically alter the state’s medical marijuana program. The measure, Senate Bill 9 (SB 9), was introduced by state Senators Steve Huffman and Kirk Schuring on January 11.

The bill aims to update Ohio’s medical marijuana law, which was passed by the state legislature and signed into law in 2016. But this week, the Ohio Medical Cannabis Industry Association (OMCIA) came out against SB 9, saying that the increase in medical marijuana dispensaries and cannabis cultivation space included in the measure would lead to an oversaturation of supply that could cripple the industry.

“SB 9 punishes companies like mine that have invested hundreds of millions of development dollars into our state,” Daniel Kessler, co-owner and CEO of medical marijuana cultivator and processor Rivera Creek said in a statement from the OMCIA. “Instead of reducing bureaucracy, this bill does the opposite by adding an additional level of oversight in the form of a commission of lifetime political appointees.”

The group says that the bill would add an additional two million square feet of medical cannabis cultivation space and add more than 60 new medical marijuana dispensary licenses to the 130 permits already issued. The legislation also adds cultivation licenses for some independent cannabis processors, as well as processing licenses for level 2 cultivators. 

“What we’ve found is that many of the growers want to expand and grow more,” Huffman said when the legislation was introduced earlier this year. “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 Group Says Increased Capacity Unnecessary

But the OMCIA says that the increased production capacity would come at a time when “many current cultivators have scaled back their production by 30% – 50% and are not operating at full capacity.” The group also noted that Ohio’s current medical marijuana program regulations already have provisions allowing current operators to expand their operations as the market grows. 

“We are opposed to the massive expansion outlined in SB 9 because it lacks the data justifying that such an expansion is needed,” said Bryan Murray, executive vice president of government relations at multistate cannabis operator Acreage Holdings. “The negative impact of oversupply in markets across the nation cannot be overstated – and opening the floodgates in contradiction to market realities would be detrimental to the industry in Ohio.”

Kessler added that “the expansion measures in the bill would add immense supply to an already over-supplied market. Despite my company’s high-quality product reputation, we currently have hundreds of pounds of product in our inventory that we cannot sell. Even at wholesale pricing, the demand is not there. If the bill passes in its current state, it is likely that the industry will crumble, and the only winner will be the illegal illicit market.”

The bill creates a new state agency within the Ohio Department of Commerce, the Division of Marijuana Control, 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. 

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 OMCIA notes that the number of participants in Ohio’s medical marijuana program “has remained stagnant at an average of 163,000 active patients” and argues that adding more production and retail capacity is not needed. Instead, the group called for several changes to make medical marijuana accessible to more patients.

“Ohio’s stagnant patient base does not warrant SB 9’s additional licensure and expansion of cultivation space,” said Matt Close, executive director of OMCIA. “The last thing we need is more supply. Instead, legislation should focus on addressing our industry’s most significant challenge: excessive barriers to patient participation.”

The OMCIA recommends adding anxiety, insomnia and depression as qualifying conditions for the program and for annual medical marijuana identification card fees to be reduced or eliminated. The trade group is also calling for medical marijuana recommendations to be valid for three years instead of the current one year and for patients with incurable conditions to be granted lifelong approval. 

Further recommendations from the group include eliminating state, county and local taxes on medical marijuana purchases, employment protections for medical marijuana cardholders and a prohibition on intoxicating hemp cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC from being sold outside the state’s regulated medical marijuana program.

SB 9 is currently under consideration by the Senate General Government Committee, with a hearing on the legislation scheduled for this week.

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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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Lawmakers in Ohio on Wednesday passed a bill that would result in the first significant change to the state’s medical cannabis program since it launched in 2016, effectively empowering doctors to recommend cannabis for just about any condition. 

Senate Bill 261 passed out of the chamber, and will now be considered by the state House of Representatives. Sponsored by Republican state Sen. Steve Huffman, the legislation would bring a host of major changes to the five-year-old law. Perhaps most significant of all, the bill calls for a big expansion of the number of medical conditions that would qualify a patient for medical cannabis treatment in the Buckeye State of Ohio.

Under Huffman’s proposed bill, physicians would be permitted to “recommend marijuana for treatment for any condition if the physician, in the physician’s sole discretion and medical opinion, finds either of the following”: “that the patient’s symptoms may reasonably be expected to be relieved from medical marijuana” and “that the patient may otherwise reasonably be expected to benefit from medical marijuana.”

Currently, patients in Ohio with the following conditions may qualify for medical cannabis treatment: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; Alzheimer’s disease; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Cancer; Chronic traumatic encephalopathy; Crohn’s disease; Epilepsy or another seizure disorder; Fibromyalgia; Glaucoma; Hepatitis C; Inflammatory bowel disease; Multiple sclerosis; Pain that is either chronic and severe or intractable; Parkinson’s disease; Positive status for HIV; Post-traumatic stress disorder; Sickle cell anemia; Spinal cord disease or injury; Tourette’s syndrome; Traumatic brain injury and Ulcerative colitis. 

Ohio Moves to Help More Patients

Huffman’s bill would add arthritis, migraines, autism spectrum disorder, spasticity or chronic muscle spasms, hospice care or terminal illness and opioid use disorder to the list of qualifying conditions. 

The legislation would also create “a new Division of Marijuana Control (DMC) within the Department of Commerce,” which would “oversee and administer Ohio’s Medical Marijuana Control Program.”

“As such, the majority of responsibilities the State Board of Pharmacy has with regard to the medical cannabis program are transferred to DMC,” read a legislative analysis of the bill, which Huffman first proposed last month. “These transferred responsibilities include: patient and caregiver registration, approval and oversight of retail dispensary licensees, oversight of licensee taxation, criminal records checks for license applicants and employees, investigations of violations of the Medical Marijuana Law, entering into reciprocity agreements with other states, and maintenance of a toll-free telephone line for responding to inquiries related to the Medical Marijuana Program. It also changes references in the Revised Code as necessary to accommodate these changes.”

Moreover, the bill would bring about a major expansion of the number of cannabis dispensaries in the state.

The bill’s analysis said that the proposal would require the Division of Marijuana Control “to endeavor to achieve a ratio of at least one licensed retail dispensary per 1,000 registered patients up to the first 300,000 registered patients and then adding additional retail dispensaries on an as-needed basis.”

It would also allow “licensed dispensaries to advertise, on social media or otherwise, without receiving prior approval from DMC,” and allow them to “display products on advertisements and within the dispensary.”

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the bill passed the state Senate by a  26-5 vote, and that Huffman “plans to push additional changes that didn’t get through in time for Wednesday’s floor vote.”

“Among the proposed amendments: Adding lupus to the list of qualifying conditions and clarifying that standalone processors would only be eligible for small-scale, level II cultivation licenses,” the Enquirer reported.

According to the newspaper, “Ohio’s large-scale, level I cultivators can grow up to 25,000 square feet of marijuana, and level II cultivators are limited to 3,000 square feet,” while state rules permit “licensees to expand to 75,000 square feet and 9,000 square feet, respectively.” 

Huffman’s proposal, the Enquirer reported, “would increase expansion for level II growers to 20,000 square feet while leaving level I cultivators at the same limit.”

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