To Chairman Thomas, Vice Chair Mathews, Ranking Member Isaacsohn, and members of the House Judiciary Committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide opponent testimony on House Bill 160.
As this committee knows, Ohio voters across the state overwhelmingly passed Issue 2 in November 2023 by a 57-43% margin. On the evening Issue 2 passed, and continuing until at least today, opponents have theorized, speculated, and created out of thin air reasons why Ohioans so thoroughly approved of this change to Ohio law.
Even though Issue 2 proceeded as an initiated statute, subject to changes by the General Assembly, and not a constitutional amendment, those same voters can be forgiven if they assumed any changes by the legislature would be minimal and complimentary to the overall goals of Issue 2. After all, because the Issue 2 campaign opted for the initiated statute route and process, that means the General Assembly had four entire months to make changes, tweak language, and work with that campaign on these matters before Issue 2 reached the ballot. In fact, as part of that process, legislators and the Issue 2 campaign could have reached agreement on these issues and possibly kept Issue 2 from even reaching the statewide ballot. Obviously, none of that happened. But here we are, nonetheless.
Now, 1.5 years after Issue 2’s passage, HB 160 imposes a litany of negative changes on cannabis users, consumers, growers, and professionals to dismantle key parts of current Ohio law enacted by your constituents. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on two topics in my testimony – changes to criminal laws made by House Bill 160 and the cynical scrapping of the social equity and jobs program.
CRIMINAL LAWS
HB 160 changes and creates various criminal offenses. At worst, these changes can be interpreted as purposeful, designed to kneecap Issue 2. At the least, these changes fundamentally handicap the purchase, use, transportation, and sale of cannabis in the state. Consider the following:
