“It includes requirements for product testing, safe packaging, age verification. These are all common sense measures.”
By Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal
The Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill that would regulate intoxicating hemp and drinkable cannabinoid products.
Ohio Senate Bill 86 would require intoxicating hemp products to be sold only at adult-use marijuana dispensaries instead of allowing them to be sold at CBD stores, convenience stores, smoke shops, or gas stations. The bill now moves to the Ohio House for consideration.
“Current intoxicated hemp products are untested and unregulated,” said Ohio state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City. “The bill protects buyers from gaining access to these intoxicating products and ensures adults can still purchase them from existing regulated operators.”
Huffman introduced the bill with state Sen. Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has implored lawmakers to regulate or ban delta-8 THC products.
The bill would also impose a 10 percent tax on intoxicating hemp products, ban sales to anyone under 21, and would only allow intoxicating hemp products to be sold at dispensaries if the products have been tested and comply with standards for packaging, labeling, and advertising.
During discussion on the bill on Wednesday, senators talked primarily about how the bill would protect Ohio kids.
“This bill regulates intoxicating hemp products and removes the untested, unsafe items that are marketed toward children from corner stores and vape shops and gas stations,” said state Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus. “It includes requirements for product testing, safe packaging, age verification. These are all common sense measures.”
Wilkin spoke about how a health commissioner in his district came across an intoxicating hemp product that looked like Rice Krispies cereal box.
“That is marketed to kids,” he said. “We don’t know what’s in them and unfortunately they are, without question, ending up in our kids’ hands and that’s not right.”
Children’s safety and standardization got the Senate Democrats on board with the bill as well, according to Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood.
“The more we can narrow in the standardization and some oversight…and the safety of them, the better we are,” she said. “Is it perfect? No, but does it really get to some of the positive changes for safety’s sake? I think so.”
CBD store owners previously testified against the bill, arguing this could potentially put them out of business. During testimony in March, Bellefontaine business owner Jaimee Courtney said the bill would eliminate 90% of the “non-intoxicating full-spectrum hemp products” her business offers, and that the bill would “drive consumers to unregulated online markets.”
“I don’t have a lot of sympathy for some of those businesses that are now being forced to not offer a product that was very clearly dangerous and targeted towards children,” said Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon. “I still think if [shops] were operating before [intoxicating hemp], they’re going to be able to operate after.”
Members of the marijuana business, poison control workers, and religious organizations testified in support of the bill.
The 2018 U.S. Farm Bill says hemp can be legally grown if it contains less than 0.3 percent THC. Ohio is one of about 20 states that does not have any regulations around intoxicating hemp products, according to an Ohio State University Drug Enforcement and Policy Center study from November 2024.
This story was first published by Ohio Capital Journal.
Photo courtesy of Kimzy Nanney.
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