Any elected official or parent should be worried by reports of children accidentally consuming hemp-derived THC products. State lawmakers responded with the passage of Ohio Senate Bill 56 signed into law by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine last month that treats intoxicating hemp products the same as marijuana.
SB 56’s goal is to bring order, protect families, and restore the rule of law in the hemp industry. Hemp was legalized under federal law under the auspices of agriculture, not as a backdoor way to market psychoactive drugs outside of Ohio’s voter-approved marijuana system. Over the years, the hemp market had drifted from this.
Markets work when industry rules are simple, equitable, and consistently applied. SB 56 regulates intoxicating hemp products the same as adult-use marijuana providing requirements on testing, labeling, age verification, and points of sale licensure.
Those against the law claim SB 56 harms farmers of hemp and small retail business. Yet a truly pro-business environment will depend on stable, predictable rules and not regulation subject to lawsuits, emergency orders, and executive action.
Ohio’s recent hemp reforms has not appeased everyone.The group Ohioans for Cannabis Choice has launched a bid to place a referendum on the November 2026 ballot. The goal is to repeal portions of SB 56 and restore the original language of 2023’s voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative and loosen the new restrictions on hemp.
Under SB 56, the hemp industry will remain intact because non-intoxicating hemp products remain legal. What the law does is provide meaningful review and prevents bad actors taking advantage of a technical definition in federal law.
Ohio’s choice to treat intoxicating hemp like marijuana is practical following a wider national trend throughout the U.S. Although several states have adopted a permissive stance toward intoxicating hemp, many conservative-leaning and progressive states have begun to outlaw or ban these products altogether. Some states treat hemp products the same as controlled substances or require sales to be from licensed cannabis channels.
This option leaves nothing to the imagination, whether unchecked intoxicants can thrive while running a tightly controlled adult-use marijuana program. Many lawmakers and policy pundits were correct to ask why one market should have strict rules, taxes, and licensing, while the other sells similar products with no regulation.
Finally, this reform honors Ohio voters from the 2023 approved adult use of marijuana and its regulatory framework. The framework did not anticipate hemp-derived intoxicants operating outside of the law.
Likely, there will be need for improvements with the hemp industry being such a new and growing market, but for those hemp industry good actors SB 56 is welcome news. Most in the hemp industry want to be good stewards and provide a legal, safe product.
SB56 provides needed public safety, legal certainty, and responsible markets for the Ohio hemp industry. In a policy space with many murkier forms of confusion and opportunism, SB 56 offers some structure and common sense.
Rob Scott, a Republican, is the Kettering Clerk of Court, attorney, and small business owner. Contact him at rob@robscott.us.