Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) has a message for the cannabis advocates, hemp business owners, and everyday Ohioans who are upset about his state’s new law gutting the marijuana legalization program voters approved in 2023: quit your whining.
Yes, he actually used the word “whining.” In public. On camera. To describe the frustrations of citizens whose voter-approved rights are being systematically dismantled by the legislature.
“I think the proponents should be happy with their victory at the polls, instead of now going back and whining about something the legislature has done, which frankly I think is very consistent with what the average voter was thinking when they went in to vote,” DeWine told News 5 Cleveland.
“I think we’re very consistent with what voters intended,” he added.
With all due respect to the governor, I’m not sure “be happy and stop whining” is the winning message he thinks it is when you’re talking to people whose businesses are being shuttered, whose legal protections are being stripped, and whose rights as voters are being casually rewritten by the very legislature they elected.
The Referendum Fight Is On
Despite the governor’s dismissive tone, advocates aren’t backing down. In fact, they’re organizing.
The campaign behind a referendum to block key provisions of Senate Bill 56 is officially underway. Ohioans for Cannabis Choice, the group spearheading the effort, recently had its petition language cleared by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office following a review of the title and summary. This came after an initial version was rejected for being “affirmatively misleading,” which required the group to revise and resubmit.
Now they’re in a race against the clock. The referendum campaign needs to collect approximately 248,000 valid signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties before March 19, which is the same day SB 56 is set to take effect. If they hit that threshold, the law would be paused until voters get a chance to weigh in at the November 2026 ballot. Paid circulators have already hit the streets, according to campaign organizers.
Here’s the critical detail that often gets lost in the noise: if a majority of voters reject Sections 1, 2, and 3 of SB 56, those provisions don’t take effect and the prior versions of affected laws remain in place. The submitted referendum summary makes this explicitly clear, stating that the contested sections “enact new provisions and amend and repeal existing provisions of the Ohio Revised Code that relate to the regulation, criminalization, and taxation of cannabis products.”
In other words, voters would get to decide whether the legislature’s changes stand or whether the law they actually voted for in 2023 remains intact. In a functioning democracy, that seems like a reasonable process. Apparently, the governor considers it “whining.”
What SB 56 Actually Does (And Why People Are Upset)
To understand why advocates, business owners, and consumers are so fired up, you need to understand what SB 56 actually changes. Because it goes far beyond “regulating the hemp market,” which is how supporters like to frame it.
Recriminalizes marijuana activity that voters legalized. The law makes it a criminal offense to possess marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed Ohio dispensary or a legal homegrow. Think about what that means in practical terms. If you drive to Michigan, where recreational cannabis is perfectly legal, buy products from a licensed dispensary there, and bring them back to Ohio, you could be charged with a crime. For possessing a legal product you purchased legally in a neighboring state. The logic here is, to put it generously, strained.
Strips anti-discrimination protections. This is the provision that should concern everyone, regardless of where you stand on cannabis itself. The original legalization law that 57% of Ohio voters approved in 2023 included anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. These protections covered child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants, and professional licensing. SB 56 eliminates that language entirely. A parent could lose custody consideration. A patient could be denied an organ transplant. A professional could lose their license. All for using a substance that Ohio voters decided should be legal.
In my personal opinion, removing protections that voters specifically approved crosses a line from policy adjustment into democratic overreach. Voters didn’t accidentally include those protections. They were part of the package, and 57% of the electorate said yes.
Bans public cannabis smoking in outdoor spaces. Under SB 56, smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations like bar patios is prohibited. Whether you agree with this from a public health standpoint is debatable, but it’s clearly a narrowing of the freedoms voters approved.
Gives landlords power to ban vaping, even outdoors. The law allows landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rental properties. Violating that policy, even if it means vaping in your own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense. Let that sink in for a moment. You could get a criminal charge for vaping a legal substance in your own backyard because your landlord said no. At a time when homeownership is increasingly out of reach for many Ohioans, criminalizing renters for private behavior on their own rented property feels punitive in a way that has nothing to do with public safety.
Bans intoxicating hemp products outside dispensaries. Under the new law, hemp items with more than 0.4 mg of total THC per container, or those containing synthetic cannabinoids, can no longer be sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary. This aligns with recent federal hemp legislation signed by President Donald Trump, but Ohio’s version takes effect sooner. The governor even used his line-item veto to cancel a provision that would have delayed the hemp beverage ban until December 31, 2026, ensuring the crackdown happens faster.
For the roughly 6,000 hemp businesses operating in Ohio, many of them small, family-run operations, this is an existential threat. The hemp-derived cannabis product market has been a lifeline for entrepreneurs who built businesses around the legal framework that existed. Overnight, their products become contraband.
Reduces THC potency caps. The law lowers the maximum THC level in adult-use marijuana extracts from 90% to 70% and caps flower at 35% THC. While there are legitimate conversations to be had about potency regulation, the approach of implementing caps without robust scientific backing or patient input raises questions about whether this is evidence-based policy or political posturing. Understanding how terpene profiles interact with THC to produce different effects is an area of growing research, and the science suggests that potency caps alone are a blunt instrument for addressing concerns about product safety.
The Voices of Real People Caught in the Crossfire
The human impact of SB 56 is where this story moves from political disagreement to genuine harm.
Scotty Hunter, whose Cincinnati-based brewery Urban Artifact sells THC-infused beverages, didn’t mince words in response to the governor’s “whining” comment: “We elect officials to represent us and represent what we want to see happen. We don’t elect officials to tell us how to behave, how to act, what to consume. I think they’re out of line, quite honestly.”
Hunter’s frustration is grounded in cold, hard economics. “The fact that the legislature is okay with eliminating 6,000 businesses, a billion dollars per year in economic activity, it’s crazy to me, especially when so many Ohioans are struggling,” he said. “This is an opportunity for so many small businesses, and now, you’re gonna make the economic situation even tougher.”
For brewers and small manufacturers who built businesses around hemp-derived THC products, SB 56 doesn’t just change the rules. It eliminates their entire industry. These aren’t faceless corporations. They’re local business owners who invested their savings, hired employees, paid taxes, and followed every regulation that existed at the time. Now they’re being told their businesses are illegal.
“It’s about the freedom of choice and the government not being overbearing in what people can do day to day in their everyday life,” Hunter said. “And SB 56 completely tramples all over that.”
On the other side, Adrienne Robbins of the Ohio Cannabis Coalition defended the law’s approach to hemp regulation: “You see this gray market that pops up selling dangerous drugs to children and all other Ohio consumers.”
It’s a fair point about the unregulated hemp market, and one that even some advocates acknowledge. But the question is whether SB 56’s approach, which effectively bans an entire industry rather than creating a regulatory framework, is proportionate to the problem. You can regulate consumer safety without destroying thousands of businesses and criminalizing the people who built them.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: Ohio’s Cannabis Market Is Thriving
Here’s the ironic backdrop to all of this: Ohio’s legal cannabis market is booming.
Ohio retailers sold more than $1 billion worth of legal marijuana products in 2025, according to data from the Ohio Department of Commerce. Recreational sales alone topped $836 million during the first full year of adult-use purchases, while medical marijuana sales contributed over $233 million. There are currently 190 dual-use dispensaries operating in the state, according to the Division of Cannabis Control.
These are remarkable numbers for a program that only launched adult-use sales in August 2024. The market grew from $242 million in recreational sales during its partial launch year to $836 million in its first full year. That’s not a struggling industry. That’s a runaway success story.
The economic activity extends well beyond dispensary sales. It includes cultivation operations, processing facilities, testing laboratories, transportation companies, and the countless ancillary businesses that support the supply chain. Products ranging from terpene-rich flower to carefully formulated edibles featuring compounds like myrcene for relaxation, limonene for mood enhancement, and caryophyllene for inflammation are driving consumer interest and generating tax revenue that flows back to Ohio communities.
And that tax revenue is finally reaching municipalities. In January 2026, Ohio began distributing host community marijuana tax revenue for the first time, sending roughly $33 million to cities and villages statewide. For smaller communities, these funds represent meaningful budget contributions toward public safety, infrastructure, and community services.
So the state is collecting billions in sales, distributing millions in tax revenue, and the governor’s response to concerns about restrictive new legislation is to tell people to stop whining. The disconnect is hard to ignore.
The Bigger Picture: When Legislatures Override Voters
What’s happening in Ohio is part of a broader national pattern that should concern anyone who values direct democracy, regardless of their personal views on cannabis.
In 2023, 57% of Ohio voters approved Issue 2 to legalize recreational marijuana. That’s not a slim margin. It’s a decisive majority that crossed partisan lines. Voters knew what they were approving because the initiative was detailed and specific. It included anti-discrimination protections. It established possession limits. It created a regulatory framework. Voters read it, understood it, and said yes.
Issue 2 was passed as an initiated statute rather than a constitutional amendment, which is a legally important distinction. Initiated statutes are easier to get on the ballot but can be modified by the legislature. Constitutional amendments are harder to pass but can’t be casually rewritten by lawmakers. This structural vulnerability is exactly what SB 56 exploits.
The result is a situation where the legislature, which couldn’t pass legalization on its own and was effectively bypassed by voters, gets to rewrite the law after the fact. Advocates are already discussing whether a constitutional amendment might be necessary to truly protect voter-approved cannabis rights from legislative interference.
For those following cannabis policy developments nationally, Ohio’s situation serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of structural protections for voter-approved reforms.
The Governor’s Other Cannabis Priorities
It’s worth noting what DeWine has chosen to prioritize alongside his “stop whining” message.
In March 2025, the governor announced his desire to reallocate marijuana tax revenue to support police training, local jails, and behavioral health services. He specifically said funding police training was a top priority, even though that wasn’t included in what voters passed in 2023.
Now, supporting behavioral health services with cannabis tax revenue is entirely reasonable. Many legalization advocates have pushed for exactly that kind of funding allocation. But using marijuana revenue primarily to fund police training and jails strikes a particular tone when paired with a law that creates new marijuana crimes. You legalize cannabis, tax it, then use the tax revenue to fund the enforcement apparatus that criminalizes the cannabis activity you just created. It’s a remarkably circular approach to governance.
Meanwhile, a survey of 38 municipalities by Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law found that local leaders were “unequivocally opposed” to earlier proposals that would have stripped their planned funding from cannabis tax revenue. The municipalities that opted into hosting dispensaries did so with the expectation of receiving a share of the economic benefits, and any attempt to divert those funds faces strong local opposition.
What Comes Next
The referendum campaign faces a genuine uphill battle. Collecting 248,000 valid signatures from at least 44 counties in roughly six weeks is a massive logistical undertaking. For context, Ohioans haven’t successfully overturned a law via referendum since 2011, when voters rejected Senate Bill 5, which had restricted collective bargaining for public sector unions.
Even if the referendum succeeds and voters reject SB 56’s contested provisions in November, there’s a structural catch: the legislature could simply draft and pass a new bill with similar provisions. The only way to permanently protect voter-approved cannabis rights from legislative modification would be through a constitutional amendment, which advocates say remains on the table.
For consumers and patients who rely on cannabis products for pain management, anxiety relief, sleep support, or simply because they enjoy a legal product in a state where voters decided it should be legal, the next few months are going to be tense. Understanding the science behind cannabis compounds and how different terpenes contribute to the therapeutic experience becomes increasingly important as regulatory environments shift and product availability changes.
In the meantime, the circulators are out collecting signatures, the clock is ticking toward March 19, and the governor is suggesting that democratic participation is “whining.”
My honest take? When 57% of your state’s voters tell you what they want, and your response is to rewrite their decision and then tell them to be grateful for whatever you left intact, you’re not “being consistent with voter intent.” You’re hoping they don’t show up again to prove you wrong.
Something tells me they will.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal, medical, or financial advice. Cannabis remains a controlled substance under federal law. Readers should consult with qualified professionals regarding their specific circumstances. All factual claims are sourced from publicly available government records, official statements, and verified news reports.
