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Could you live in Ohio without being high?
Not serious, but still. You try living without weed in a flat, gray twilight zone of college football, opioids and weird spaghetti. Any person who walks out alive and unscathed is better than most.
Almost 2.2 million people in Ohio agreed that life in the flatlands could be better with a little help from the plant. On November 7, just over a decade after Colorado and Washington voters trailblazed the path, Ohio became the 24th state to legalize recreational pot. Its first try, in 2015, didn’t work out, but now the country’s seventh-most-populated state has joined the party, which could have a big effect on the country’s cannabis space.
Market reports are bullish on Ohio’s potential – if a Republican-led state legislature doesn’t come through on threats of restrictions – and predict almost $2 billion in annual sales after stores open, with tens of thousands of jobs to support the new retail industry.
Colorado has only crossed $2 billion in yearly sales twice, in 2020 and 2021, but the tax revenue returns have still been sizable. Denver alone has collected over $500 million in tax revenue since dispensary sales began, while the state as a whole has accrued well over $2.5 billion in tax revenue and licensing fees. But those numbers have been falling as of late, and now there’s even more competition.
With Illinois, Michigan and, recently, Minnesota legalizing, the Midwest is slowly becoming a powerful pot region, and Ohio could help persuade its neighbor to the east, Pennsylvania, to adopt recreational laws so that Pennsylvanians don’t drive across the border instead of applying for a medical marijuana card. Recognizing that they’re not playing in the sandbox alone anymore, states newer to legalization have created more business-friendly tax laws and regulations.
Ohio’s new laws include home-growing allowances as well as 2.5-ounce purchase and possession limits and a 10 percent tax on purchases. That’s more liberal than Colorado’s laws, which allow for adults to possess up to two ounces of cannabis and purchase no more than one ounce per day, with a 15 percent state tax on all recreational wholesale and retail transactions, as well.
Still, even though Ohio looks primed to be the next hot cannabis market, anyone getting into the industry should expect plenty of bumps and bruises along the way.
Republican lawmakers in the state are already floating possible THC potency limits for dispensary products as well as changes to the retail tax structure. Although it took our legislators a little longer than election night to broach these topics, the Colorado General Assembly has further restricted home-growing rights, hash sales and access to the state’s medical marijuana program over the years. We’ve seen plenty of local governments add more taxes to cannabis sales or ban cannabis businesses altogether since 2014, too. Even today, more local governments in Colorado ban cannabis sales than allow them.
The restrictions that are likely in store for Ohio’s recreational pot industry won’t stop money from filling cash registers and government coffers, however. This is still a moment to be celebrated, and lives will be changed from the criminal justice reform. But all of those sweet vibes won’t satisfy the public forever.
Colorado dispensaries had no problem selling 3.5 grams of flower for $75 in 2014, when recreational sales began. Now that same amount can be bought for $30. While more competitive dispensary prices don’t necessarily equate to an unhealthy market, Colorado’s cannabis industry is still recovering from a years-long recession in which 30 percent of the workforce was cut and dispensary sales fell over 20 percent.
New markets like Missouri are still basking in ever-increasing dispensary sales and revenue, but states that are more experienced with commercial pot, such as Colorado and Ohio’s friendly neighbor, Michigan, have seen the highs and recent lows of commodified cannabis since the pandemic. That friendly bubble of new availability will only last so long, and those bubbles are bursting a lot faster as more states legalize. And that’s just the economic side.
Youth use, public and social pot consumption and shady operators are all typical issues that state governments don’t take lightly, so cannabis users in Ohio need to reevaluate their expectations if they think weed is about to start getting the same treatment as alcohol. It won’t, and probably never will until federal legalization occurs, and even then maybe a few decades after.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, though, and cannabis won’t be normalized overnight. This is a slow burn, and Ohio deserves praise for cranking up the heat.
