{"id":203961,"date":"2026-03-19T07:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=203961"},"modified":"2026-03-19T07:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:12:25","slug":"group-ends-push-for-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/03\/19\/group-ends-push-for-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Group ends push for referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Megan Henry\/Ohio Capital Journal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opponents of Ohio Republican lawmakers\u2019 attempt to ban intoxicating hemp products and change the state\u2019s voter-passed recreational marijuana law failed to collect enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot this year to block it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohioans for Cannabis Choice would not say how many signatures they gathered. They needed to collect 248,092 signatures and also needed to gather three percent of an individual county\u2019s gubernatorial turnout in 44 of Ohio\u2019s 88 counties to get on the November 3 ballot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we were not able to overcome a truncated time period to give voters the chance to say no to government overreach,\u201d Dennis Willard, spokesperson for Ohioans for Cannabis Choice said in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost initially\u00a0rejected the referendum\u2019s summary language\u00a0in January, but\u00a0approved it\u00a0in early February after Ohioans for Cannabis Choice made changes to the language.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan was to\u00a0submit the collected signatures to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Thursday for him to verify the signatures. This was the deadline to submit signatures since\u00a0Ohio\u00a0Senate Bill 56\u00a0takes effect Friday and it will ban intoxicating hemp products \u2014 including THC-infused beverages.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine\u00a0signed the bill into law\u00a0in December after he had been urging the lawmakers to do something about intoxicating hemp products for the past\u00a0nearly two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

On the federal level, Congress voted in November to ban products that contain 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container when they voted to reopen the government. Previously, the 2018 Farm Bill said hemp can be grown legally if it contains less than 0.3 percent THC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a one-year implementation delay for the federal hemp ban, but states can create their own regulatory framework before then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio\u2019s new law will change Ohio\u2019s marijuana law by reducing the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90 percent down to a maximum of 70 percent, cap THC levels in adult-use flower to 35 percent, and prohibit smoking in most public places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will prohibit possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana from another state back to Ohio. The legislation also requires drivers to store marijuana in the trunk of their car while driving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMarijuana will be re-criminalized in Ohio, businesses will close, workers will lose their jobs, and consumers will be denied their right to products they should be able to purchase,\u201d Willard said in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohioans voted to\u00a0legalize marijuana in 2023, recreational\u00a0sales started in August 2024,\u00a0and sales totaled more than\u00a0$836 million in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVoters overwhelmingly supported legalizing cannabis in 2023,\u201d Willard said in a statement. \u201cIt only makes sense that Governor 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio Cannabis Coalition and the\u00a0Ohio Cannabis Coalition and Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol \u2014 the group behind Issue 2 on the 2023 ballot \u2014\u00a0opposed the attempted referendum.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said he was not surprised the referendum failed to get enough signatures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis would have had two sectors of the same community essentially, as we say, the hemp guys and the marijuana guys fighting against each other,\u201d he told reporters Wednesday. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was viable from a financial standpoint for them to referendum that bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referendums are rare and the last one that passed in Ohio was when voters overturned an anti-collective bargaining law in 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Henry\/Ohio Capital Journal Opponents of Ohio Republican lawmakers\u2019 attempt to ban intoxicating hemp products and change the state\u2019s voter-passed recreational marijuana law failed to collect enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot this year to block it. Ohioans for Cannabis Choice would not say how many signatures they gathered. They needed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 01:33:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203963,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203961\/revisions\/203963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}