The Ohioans for Cannabis Choice campaign, which sought to repeal recent hemp and cannabis legislation at the ballot box, has failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the Ohio Capital Journal reports.
Republican lawmakers in Ohio passed Senate Bill 56 last year, which changes the state’s voter-approved adult-use cannabis policies and targets the state’s hemp industry with sweeping bans on most hemp-derived cannabinoids. Attorney General Dave Yost initially rejected the campaign’s title and summary language but then approved the petition in February after the campaign submitted revisions.
The campaign did not release the number of signatures they had gathered, but it would have needed at least 248,092 signatures from a wide spread of counties to qualify.
“Unfortunately, we were not able to overcome a truncated time period to give voters the chance to say no to government overreach.” — Dennis Willard, spokesperson for Ohioans for Cannabis Choice, in a statement
The new rules, which take effect starting March 20, set new maximum THC levels for cannabis concentrates (70%) and flower products (35%), and ban the possession of cannabis products sourced from outside of Ohio. Cannabis consumers in the state are also now required to store cannabis products in their original packaging.
