COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio native who led the marijuana regulation program in Los Angeles for five years told lawmakers Tuesday morning that directing cannabis tax revenue to law enforcement sends the wrong message.
The House Finance Committee met to consider House Bill 354, which changes how revenues are distributed from the 10% point-of-sale tax to be collected at dispensaries from Ohio adults. While the initiated statute voters approved in November sends money to a jobs and social equity program, local governments and substance abuse, HB 354 would send revenues to county sheriffs, law enforcement and other programs.
The Senate also has a bill, backed by Gov. Mike DeWine, that redirects revenues to law enforcement, among other changes to the initiated statute.
Yet one of the reasons 57% of voters chose to legalize adult-use cannabis Nov. 7 was to stop the criminalization of the drug, said Cat Packer, formerly executive director of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation from 2017 to 2022 and now director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports legalizing and regulating marijuana.
“My concern is that some of the reforms being seen in this legislature would be moving from ‘puff, puff pass’ to ‘puff, puff police,’” Packer said.
HB 354 also would prohibit Ohioans from sharing marijuana and marijuana plants, which is explicitly permitted in the initiated statute. Packer and others testified against the bill.
“My ask is any type of policy shifts here in the state of Ohio around cannabis policy reform keep equity and fairness at its center, that we ensure funding that’s dedicated to cannabis social equity remains, and that we think very critically about whether or not voters wanted to dedicated money to law enforcement,” she said.
It’s unlikely that the legislature will remove much of the law enforcement funding, however. DeWine and the legislature for years have searched for a permanent source of funding for police training, and see the training funds as a positive outcome of recreational marijuana legalization – which most of them oppose.
On Tuesday, it was still unclear whether lawmakers in both chambers would reach an agreement on changes to the law voters approved. While DeWine has thrown his support behind a bill the Senate passed that would allow medical dispensaries to begin immediate recreational marijuana sales, the House has not taken up the legislation and so far has not moved its own bill. Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens told reporters on Tuesday that he did not expect any marijuana legislation to move on the House floor on Wednesday, the chamber’s last scheduled session of 2023.
Others who testified on HB 354 included representatives of organizations that would like to receive some of the tax revenues, as well as marijuana consumers and small-scale cultivators in the state’s medical marijuana program.
Colleen Cotter, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, asked for money to be sent to the state’s legal aid societies to help pay for people’s drug crime expungements. Jodi Salvo, of Empower Tusc Community Coalition, Tuscarawas County’s anti-drug coalition, asked that tax revenues be sent to substance abuse prevention. Thomas Stuber, president of the LCADA Way based in Lorain and Cuyahoga counties, asked for tax revenue to help the state’s 39 state-certificated addiction treatment centers increase wages of direct support staff.
While HB 354 in its current form is silent on drug record expungement, the bill passed by the Senate allows for record expungements for low-level marijuana possession and directs $15 million for court costs and legal aid services associated with expungement.
Cotter said that expungements of misdemeanor marijuana crimes can be life changing.
“It can remove barriers to employment, professional licenses, access to credit and housing,” she said. “As you finalize House Bill 354, we ask that you consider the important work of legal aid in your district, serving your constituents. We ask that you direct cannabis tax revenue to expand the reach of our services.”
Small-scale medical marijuana growers also asked during the 3.5-hour hearing that the legislature increase their grow spaces. Currently, small-scale “Level II″ cultivators are just 3,000 square feet. The initiated statute increases the size to 15,000 and two Level II cultivators asked for lawmakers to increase that to 25,000 square feet.
The growers need to be larger to have a bigger impact on the market, said Geoffrey Korff, CEO of Galenas LLC, an Akron-based Level II cultivator.
When the medical marijuana program first began, Level IIs made up 12% of the market. But now they’re just 7% of the market, Korff said. The majority of the cultivators are Level 1, which can grow up to 25,000 square feet and may expand to 100,000 square feet under the initiated statute.
Tom Hobson, CEO of WellSpring Fields in Ravenna, said that Level IIs such as his business are being squeezed out of the medical marijuana market, which has consolidated in recent years under the ownership of multi-state operators, many of which are vertically integrated —owning cultivation, processing and dispensing operations.
“Before the consolidation in the market, we were able to sell to about 90% of the dispensaries in the Ohio market,” Hobon said. “After consolidation and the slowdown in the market, we have been forced out of many them, despite patients still asking us for our products in these stores. This is primarily due to the fact that we don’t have a dispensary. We have been told that companies with a dispensary have agreements to carry each other’s products and these agreements shut out small Ohio based companies like ours.”
Under the initiated statute, Level II cultivators can get two dispensary licenses for adult-use sales: One at their current grow location and one at the location of their choosing.
Source: cleveland.com - Critics frown on Ohio House’s proposed changes to recreational marijuana