A newly signed Ohio law regarding cannabis sales is facing severe backlash from opponents, as many are working to try to stop the bill from taking effect before its March 20th deadline.
Senate Bill 56 was signed into law on Dec. 19, 2025, and aims to regulate Ohio’s newly revised cannabis policies. Some of the changes include limiting the amount of state dispensaries to 400 locations, lowering the potency of THC products from 90% to 70%, banning the purchase of hemp products from out-of-state dispensaries as well as pulling non-regulated products from shelves.
Dennis Willard, spokesperson for Ohioans For Cannabis Choice, strongly opposes the new law and said it will largely affect consumers.
“SB-56 is not regulation. It’s a ban on products, and it recriminalizes marijuana,” Willard said. “So voters who said yes overwhelmingly in 2023 should feel like they’re being slapped in the face and their will being ignored.”
Cannabis products serve a range of not only recreational use for consumers, but medical use as well. Willard highlighted that small businesses and people who rely on these products are most vulnerable to SB-56.
“People use our products for a variety of reasons, personal use, but they also use these products to help them sleep,” Willard said. “Veterans use it to address their PTSD. Cancer patients use it to ease their pain. So I think that it’s really unfortunate that a marketplace that exists and is thriving with 6,000 small businesses will shut down if SB-56 becomes law.”
Jacob Tinker, an employee of Paper & Leaf, which sells hemp products, echoed Willard’s concerns, questioning whether the new legislation is predatory or regulatory towards consumers who use the products as an aid.
“For shops like us, we are here to help people with pain management, sleep, overall stress relief, relaxation and unfortunately we’ve been put into the same category as like a gas station that sells THC,” Tinker said. “It’s definitely instilled fear and kind of a panic to a degree and has a lot of people questioning and worried about their products being unable to purchase.”
Brooke Dorcheff, a regular customer of the Supergood Dispensary in Ravenna, worries that SB-56 is bigger than Ohio and that leaders have ulterior motives for placing bans on these products.
“I think the state’s trying to steer away from marijuana usage so much to go back to fueling the alcohol industry since that is taking away a lot of money from there,” Dorcheff said. “I think with the current state of the world, there’s a rise in trying to control the people rather than actually hearing and going with what they want.”
Criticism of SB-56 took action almost immediately after the bill was introduced, with a written petition handed to the Ohio Attorney General’s office on Dec. 29, 2025, just 10 days after the bill was passed.
Due to the summary not meeting the standard, it was rejected by the office, and opponents of SB-56 went back to work again. The bill is slated to go into effect on March 20, and if the new petition reaches 250,000 signatures by then, it will prevent any change to the current cannabis laws.
“We’ve had so many people want to get involved that we’ve been able to get tremendous support from people, ordinary Ohioans just going out and collecting signatures,” Willard said. “We feel very confident. We’ve had a paid election process, and also we’ve had volunteers. This is extraordinary in many ways because typically campaigns like this have to rely almost completely on paid election efforts.”
Any supporters of the movement who would like to sign the petition can visit noonsb56.com for more information.
Jaycob Whitmore is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].