Ohio’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law took effect on Thursday—but as lawmakers continue to push changes, advocates are calling attention to key provisions of a Senate-passed proposal that they say threatens to perpetuate criminalization and undermine social equity even while it walks back other significant alterations that were initially proposed such as a removal home cultivation rights.
At the same time, House lawmakers held a second hearing on Thursday about a separate measure to amend the legalization law.
After weeks of discussing revisions to the initiated statute, Republicans first unveiled legislation this week that would have done away with home grow, hiked marijuana taxes and re-criminalized possession of cannabis that wasn’t obtained from licensed retailers, which couldn’t open for at least one year. Some advocates were tentatively encouraged, therefore, when a significantly revised version with seeming improvements, including the restoration of home grow rights and addition of expungements provisions, was released and quickly advanced through the Senate with near-unanimous support on Wednesday.
But the brief discussion of the bill in committee prior to the full chamber vote—which also came amid House consideration of a separate GOP-led measure—did not adequately reflect the substantive changes that would be made to the law voters
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