Ohio Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate agree there needs to be regulations that prevent children from buying intoxicating hemp products, but there was no movement last week on legislation that would regulate those products.
DeWine recently announced a 90-day executive order that bans the sale of intoxicating hemp products that started on Oct.14.
Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Carl Aveni granted a 14-day temporary restraining order on DeWine’s executive order. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for Oct. 28.
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said the 14-day pause on DeWine’s hemp ban does not give legislators urgency to pass legislation that would regulate these products.
“I think that the governor issuing the order may have jumpstarted trying to get some resolution of the whole thing,” he said, speaking to reporters on Oct. 15. “I think that perhaps a 14-day TRO only muddies the water worse than it was before.”
The temporary pause causes uncertainty, Huffman said.
“With uncertainty, in one sense, uncertainty isn’t good, but it is also when things are uncertain, that’s when people are more likely to try to resolve something,” he said. “We don’t want Delta-8 products being sold to children in stores. Everybody agrees on that. There’s a lot of other details that need to be worked out.”
Ohio Senate Bill 56 is up for a possible vote out of the Ohio House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday afternoon. The bill would only allow a licensed marijuana dispensary to sell intoxicating hemp products that have been tested and complied with packaging, labeling and advertising requirements. The bill, which passed in the Senate earlier this year, would also change parts of the state’s marijuana law.
Ohio House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, said there is opportunity for bipartisan compromise when it comes to regulating intoxicating hemp products and preventing children from buying these products at a convenience store or gas station.
“Our role is to keep communities safe by finding common sense regulations and laws around intoxicating substances,” he said. “… We should be able to do a number of good, reasonable, middle-of-the-road things with any bill that deals with intoxicating hemp. We should be able to focus on keeping kids safe.”
There are a handful of bills in the Ohio legislature that would regulate intoxicating hemp products in various ways. The Ohio Senate passed a couple of bills related to regulating intoxicating hemp products earlier this year that are now in the Ohio House.
“We’re really trying to just wait and see what the House is willing to pass,” Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said. “A lot of these hemp products, my concern is, there’s really no regulatory scheme around them. We don’t have any way of determining the point of origin if we get a bad batch. There’s no age limit to a lot of the stuff.”
The Ohio lawmakers should have done something regarding hemp a long time ago, he said.
“We need to make sure that we put some very basic protections in place to make sure that if we’re going to allow this to be sold, it’s only adults that are purchasing this and it’s not in containers the children can get into,” McColley said.
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said she hopes there is a sense of urgency around passing a bill to regulate intoxicating hemp products.
“We should set an age limit for this,” she said. “I think that’s the biggest concern that Democrats and Republicans have, is we do not want stuff like this in the hands of children.”
At least 32 states have some regulations on intoxicating hemp products.
Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.
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Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal
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