House lawmakers have rejected plans to include a tax hike on adult-use cannabis sales in the state’s two-year budget proposal.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine had called for provisions to be included in the budget raising the sales tax on retail cannabis products from ten percent to 20 percent. The Governor had suggested that the tax increase was necessary to in order to provide additional funding for law enforcement.
Ohio is one of several states where elected officials have sought to shore up state budgets by raising taxes on state-legal cannabis products. In Maryland, lawmakers gave initial approval this week to a 25 percent retail tax increase on marijuana products. In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has proposed levying a 32 percent wholesale tax on the sale of adult-use marijuana products. In New Jersey, the Governor Phil Murphy has proposed raising a special supplementary tax on cannabis from $2.50 to $15 an ounce. Last week in California, the state’s NORML chapter coordinated a lobby day in Sacramento to voice their support for legislation to halt a pending tax hike on legal cannabis products.
NORML has consistently lobbied against these proposed hikes, arguing that increasing taxes will unduly burden both consumers and licensed retailers.
Separately, Ohio lawmakers are still considering a pair of bills — SB 56 and HB 160 — both of which seek to significantly amend the state’s voter-approved adult-use legalization law by rescinding consumer protections and imposing new criminal penalties on various marijuana-related activities (such as returning to Ohio with cannabis products purchased legally in another state). NORML’s action alerts opposing these measures have been shared with state lawmakers over 18,000 times.
Ohio: Governor’s Proposed Doubling of Marijuana Sales Tax Nixed
