COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday that would allow farmers to grow industrial hemp and stores to sell products with its ingredient, known as CBD.
Senate Bill 57 passed the House and then returned to the Senate for concurrence on a number of changes the House made. The Senate OK’d the changes.
The federal government allowed states to implement hemp programs in the 2018 Farm Bill and Ohio is one of the few states without a program, said Rep. Kyle Koehler, a Springfield Republican.
Hemp is used for building materials, energy, textiles, paper products, food and household goods, he said.
Under state law, hemp is lumped in with marijuana drug laws. SB 57 would decriminalize hemp.
Hemp plants are similar to marijuana plants -- they share the same genus -- but marijuana plants contain more THC, the psychoactive ingredient that produces the “high.” Under SB 57, hemp can only contain less than 0.3 percent of THC.
Despite loosening some restrictions on the plant, critics described some changes made by the House as burdensome.
Ohio Farmers Union President Joe Logan said financial, equipment, land and facility requirements to get a license from the state were unnecessary and would keep many producers out of the industry.
Tim Johnson, co-founder of the Ohio Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, said the hemp program will be over-regulated.
“For the famers and small businesses alike, let the market work…(for) a successful program for all Ohioans,” he said in testimony to lawmakers.
Koehler, whose committee added the changes after working with Gov. Mike DeWine’s office and the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said financial safeguards are necessary with price of hemp. While corn and soybeans produce $400 to $600 an acre, hemp can produce $6,000 to $60,000 an acre.
The prices will likely stabilize, he said.
The bill was passed with a clause that specifies that it will go into effect immediately, instead of roughly 90 days after the governor signs it. That’s because Ohio is behind other states and the Department of Agriculture needs to set up the program so farmers can plant and have a harvest next spring.
Also, the bill includes provisions allowing the release of CBD products that authorities have seized under some circumstances, and the legislature wants people to be able to get their products back quickly, Koehler said.
Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder hopes the bill provides Ohio farmers relief.
“Farmers are getting hit pretty hard right now with the weather and things -- the tariffs and the weather,” he said. “I think that it now can help them a little bit. It certainly can help universities like Ohio State University, as they continue to study hemp and try to perfect seeds and such.”
A spokesman said DeWine is reviewing the bill for a possible signature.
Shortly after the bill passed, Ohioans involved in marijuana and hemp politics -- including Ian James, Stephen Letourneau and Jimmy Gould, who were behind the 2015 failed recreational marijuana measure --announced there will be an Ohio-based hemp industry coalition and it will be headed by Neil Clark, a longtime Republican lobbyist around the Statehouse.
Clark will monitor government and regulatory matters to advance the interests of the hemp industry in Ohio.
James, Letourneau and Gould have a holding company, Green Light Acquisitions, which is involved in the hemp and CBD business -- including a skincare line.