Here Are Ohio's Proposed Rules for Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries (2024)

Even Gov. Mike DeWine called the whole contradiction "goofy": Ohioans can now, since Issue 2 went into effect in early December, grow and smoke a relatively small amount of marijuana legally.

Yet, there's literally nowhere for them to buy it. (Again, legally.)

After passing with 57 percent of the vote last summer, Ohio became the 24th state to legalize weed for adult use. Though the Ohio Senate scrambled soon after Ohioans began, presumably, lighting up, a persistent legislative gap has led to a slew of unanswered questions as dispensaries new and old prepare to open up doors to regular, bud-seeking citizens.

On Wednesday, following this four-month legal gap, about a dozen proposed rules for how the state regulates the soon-to-be adult-use dispensaries were sent through DeWine's Common Sense Initiative, a board that scrutinizes statewide laws and regulations impacting businesses.

As stated in a draft form of the rule sheet, the newly-formed Division of Cannabis Control, the ivory tower for all legal weed transactions, will oversee 13 areas of regulation that, the document suggests, are copied from or influenced by other legal states.

"Other state cannabis markets and regulations were studied," it reads, "and identified best practices were used to help develop these rules."

With the DCC allocating a portion of legal sales into a fund benefiting persons that have long dealt with the brunt of the justice system, big questions abound regarding how fairness in a juicy, nascent market in Ohio will fare with free-market capitalism. And, of course, how the state and local law enforcement will balance preventing potential harm—to minors, per se—and allowing green Ohioans their joie de vivre after years of fearing legal repercussions. And jail time.

In New York last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul called the state's sluggish legal weed rollout a "disaster," following a slew of lawsuits from hundreds of dispensary prospectors claiming New York's Office of Cannabis Management awarded its flimsy 109 licenses, out of 7,000 total applications, with bias.

And just on Monday, Germany became the next country in the European Union to legalize weed, despite criticism that limiting access to "not-for-profit clubs" was too stifling. Ironically, as in Ohio, it's still illegal to buy and sell.

In Ohio, the 13 rules proposed are comprehensive in their security precautions and their tracking of kindbud throughout every single step of the sales process. (And even its disposal out back.) Here are some highlights:

• All dispensaries must be 500 feet away from any library, park, playground, school or church. And they can only stay open until 11 p.m.
• No dispensary owner can "own, control, or have financial interest in" more than one weed processor, one cultivator or more than eight separate dispensaries.
• The Division of Cannabis Control must get an accountability chart of every dispensary employee, along with records their connections to any prior employment in the marijuana industry. (Even if you've worked at a Starbuds in Denver.)
• No dispensary can change their name, or choose their name, without approval from the DCC.
• All dispensaries, new and old, must deposit $50,000 in an escrow account before operating legally. All testing labs, $75,000. High-level growers? $750,000.
• Every Ohioan entering an adult-use dispensary must show ID, be 21 or over, and will be "escorted and monitored by an assigned registered employee at all times." Want to go to any other part of the store? You'll need to sign a visitor log with your name, date, time, escort name and "purpose of the facility visit." (To "get geeked"?)
• All dispensaries have to keep tight watch on any weed thrown out. That bad bud must be weighed, recorded and measured, and must be kept away from sellable stuff. And everything—the "stalks, stems, fan leaves, or roots"—has to be ground up with non-cannabis waste to be tossed out properly.
• Dispensaries must be camera-heavy: at all points of entrance and exit, in the shop's retail area and limited-access area (for employees), overlooking trash bins and all cash registers. (All of which the DCC can monitor in real-time, 24/7.) Also, there must be access alarms at every entry point, along with motion detectors and silent alarms that ping security guards if they've been breached.
  

And with that, enjoy lighting up this summer at the dispensary nearest you. When it opens. If it opens.

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