Illustration by Kate O’Hara
Off I-275 in Butler County, across the street from Forest Fair Mall and behind a McDonald’s, sits a white and gray building with lime trim that used to be a K-Mart. No signs indicate to shoppers at a neighboring Home Depot what’s happening inside the warehouse, protected by a tall fence and two security checkpoints.
Inside, some of King City Gardens’s 170 employees assemble for morning meetings, wearing varying levels of protective coverings and company-logoed bucket hats. This crew grows and packages between 500 and 550 pounds of marijuana a week to help supply Ohio’s now five-year-old medical marijuana market and the brand-new recreational market that officially launched on August 6.
Marketing and business development consultant Jessica Thames begins a tour. Zipped head-to-toe in white coveralls, she starts where it all begins, in the “Mom Room.” Every cannabis strain grown here—from Blueberry Muffin to Ice Cream Cake—comes from a cutting off of a mother plant, which she explains is kept in the vegetative stage in order to create identical clones. “If you think of craft beer or craft bourbon, it’s small batch,” she says. “That’s what we do here, only with cannabis.”
With the launch of recreational weed sales in Ohio, King City Gardens plans to double production and open three dispensaries in the Cincinnati area in the coming year, says Thames.
Voters passed Issue 2 in November 2023 by a 57-43 percent margin, making the Buckeye State the nation’s 24th to legalize adult recreational marijuana use. For many months now, adults 21 and older have been legally allowed to ingest, possess, and grow marijuana; a brand-new recreational sales industry is now taking off, ramped up and overseen by a newly formed state agency, the Division of Cannabis Control. As of early September, the division had granted 121 dual-use licenses to dispensaries around the state, including 27 in Southwest Ohio.
Meanwhile, around the state, dozens of communities (including Fairfield, West Chester Township, and Sycamore Township) have maintained a “Just Say No” approach, enacting moratoriums to limit or restrict marijuana businesses from opening in their jurisdictions.
Elsewhere, the state has begun collecting a 10 percent excise tax on recreational marijuana sales, as spelled out in the ballot initiative. Issue 2 stipulated that tax revenue be split four ways: 36 percent directed to the Cannabis Social Equity and Jobs Fund, 36 percent to the Host Community Cannabis Fund, 25 percent to the Substance Abuse and Addiction Fund, and 3 percent to the Division of Cannabis Control and Tax Commissioner Fund.
Splitting the new tax revenue, which is estimated to be between $276 million and $403 million a year, is written into the law but far from set in stone, says Douglas Berman, executive director of the Moritz College of Law’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at Ohio State University. He’s closely monitoring Ohio’s recreational roll-out and researches topics related to marijuana reform in Ohio and the nation.
“The specifics passed as part of the ballot initiative,” says Berman, “but that seems like the area that could possibly change.” Like many other states, Ohio passed its marijuana law as a legislative statute, which he says gives state-level elected officials the ability to collectively change the details. Some states passed constitutional amendments, enshrining marijuana legality into their state constitutions.
Since Ohio voters approved Issue 2, several bills have been introduced and debated in Columbus that would change the law, but none has garnered enough support to pass. Most recently, before summer recess, legislators introduced Senate Bill 278 to alter the law in many ways, including banning or limiting home growing, eliminating the Social Equity and Jobs Program entirely, and changing the distribution of tax revenue to instead fund jail construction and renovation, peace officer training, law enforcement continuing education, and local drug task forces. Berman predicts a final bill may come together in the lame duck session after November’s elections or during the state budgeting process next year.
Photograph by Jeremy Kramer courtesy King City Gardens
Ohio’s marijuana industry grows while those details shake out, says Bonnie Rabin, an adjunct professor in the Cannabis Studies program at the University of Cincinnati. She’s amazed at the variety of students working toward the 15-hour Cannabis Studies Certificate, offered to all majors and non-matriculating students.
“Everything from horticulture students to architecture students, chemical engineering, marketing, political science, psychology, risk management, neuroscience, everyone is interested,” says Rabin. “All of these jobs touch the cannabis industry in some way. A lot of eyes across the country are on Ohio, because we have strong products here and a lot of potential.”
Patrick Wurzbacher, a 24-year-old Pleasant Ridge resident, was one of Rabin’s students. Today he is product manager at Backroad Wellness, a small, family-owned company with three dispensaries across Ohio.
He’s sort of the “Swiss Army Knife of the crew,” Wurzbacher says, doing essentially anything that interacts with the product: purchasing, inventory, budget management, and managing relationships with vendors, the company’s point-of-sale system, and online menu. He’s working on a smart phone app, an e-mail campaign, and loyalty program, too.
Wurzbacher loves talking about cannabis and being part of the industry. He feels the stigma around the drug beginning to lift in many ways, including just how much more inquisitive people are about it than they were a few years ago. “Even my own mom, who was opposed to cannabis my whole life to the point of drug-testing my brothers and me in high school, now refers to it as medicine,” Wurzbacher says. Her mind began to change, he says, after his great aunt was diagnosed with cancer; although she died, he says cannabis gummies helped improve her appetite and quality of life.
Nationwide, attitudes have certainly shifted over the past 50 years. According to Gallup, just 12 percent of Americans in 1969 thought marijuana should be legal, with the percentage rising to about 58 percent by 2013 and about 70 percent today. A recent analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 74 percent of Americans live in a legal marijuana state. (Kentucky begins its medical marijuana program in January 2025.)
But that sentiment isn’t shared everywhere. According to the OSU Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, 71 communities in Ohio have passed some sort of local prohibition statute. That represents just 3 percent of the state’s incorporated municipalities and townships, but a cluster lies in Southwest Ohio, including many in Butler and Montgomery counties.
Fairfield City Council, for example, passed a prohibition against all types of marijuana businesses in the city in 2017 after Ohio’s medical marijuana law went into effect. “The council’s position was to wait and see how things turn out,” says Greg Kathman, Fairfield’s development services director.
After the community’s voters approved Issue 2 by 57.8 percent, though, some councilmembers leaned toward lifting that prohibition, which expired after this issue went to press. “Staff has presented some legislation that would allow one dispensary to open in certain limited areas of town and might also allow cultivators and processors to operate in town,” Kathman says. “But it’s unclear how it will end up.”
According to the OSU study, local moratoriums were enacted mainly to preserve public safety and/or wait for full state rules. The public safety piece is difficult to suss out, says Jana Hrdinová, administrative director at the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. “The bag is really mixed with some research showing a slight increase in crime, some research showing no effect, and some showing a decline in crime,” she says. “Legalization is still fairly recent, so we don’t have a long runway of data.”
Michelle Rutter Friberg, director of government relations at the National Cannabis Industry Association, argues there is in fact some clear evidence that cannabis legalization has had positive impacts on public health and safety. “This is a relatively new policy area, but we have already seen data that shows, for instance, states that have either medical marijuana and/or adult-use programs see a significant decrease in opioid deaths and overdoses after implementation begins,” she says. “Border states also see a drop in drug smuggling once they have a legal program, and we haven’t seen a huge rise in traffic fatalities or anything like that.”
For these and many other reasons, the trade organization representing roughly 500 U.S. cannabis businesses supports an ongoing effort to reschedule or remove marijuana from America’s controlled substances list.
Marijuana was listed as a Schedule I drug when the Controlled Substance Act passed in 1970. That meant the drug was considered to have the highest possible potential for abuse and severe psychological and/or physical dependence—higher than cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended that it be rescheduled to Schedule III, as a drug with moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.
“We believe marijuana should not be on the controlled substances list at all and that it should be regulated in America like alcohol,” says Rutter Friberg. “However, recognizing that that is not where policymakers are, we support rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III.”
A major reason, she says, is that companies collecting revenue from a Schedule I drug do not qualify for basic business tax deductions. “No payroll, no rent, no utilities,” she says. “What ends up happening is that these businesses are taxed at a tax rate upwards of what some of our members say is 70 percent. These business conditions make it nearly impossible to stay afloat.”
The federal government recently closed public comment on the topic of rescheduling and received more than 43,000 comments, with the vast majority in favor of rescheduling or descheduling. Now the industry waits, says Rutter Friberg. “Everyone wants to know how long this will take, and I have no idea,” she says. “It’s unclear to me both in terms of the logistics and in terms of the politics, which I think are probably two different questions.”
Photograph by Jeremy Kramer courtesy King City Gardens
At the state level, politics and the uncertainty of legal changes are holding up key parts of the Issue 2 statute, says OSU’s Hrdinová.
Ohio law says the state should be moving toward pre-legalization criminal justice reform, like expungement of previous marijuana criminal offenses, investment in communities disproportionately affected by the prohibition of marijuana in the past, and facilitating the participation of underrepresented groups in the marijuana industry with technical and financial support. These social equity topics, in general, have been some of the most controversial, so the holdup “is understandable but frustrating,” Hrdinová says. “The sooner social equity businesses can get online, the more likely it is that they might actually make it financially profitable. If they don’t even have the criteria yet, then it’s likely that social equity applicants will enter a more saturated market.”
The Ohio Department of Development, which is responsible for creating these programs, did not have an explicit timeline for their launch and did not answer questions about what sort of progress has been made. While a significant number of supporters of Issue 2 really care about the social equity piece, Berman says, it can get overlooked once an industry gets going.
Abayomi Nelson says it’s frustrating to see elected officials continue their efforts to change a law approved by voters. A graduate of Mason High School and the University of Cincinnati, he began using marijuana years ago to treat pain and discomfort from old soccer injuries as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“I was taking Adderall and Vyvanse, and my girlfriend at the time was like, ‘I can’t be around you because it changes who you are,’” Nelson says. “And it really did. Cannabis helped me curb my hyperactivity and allowed me to focus and feel like myself.”
Today, Nelson is general manager at The Landing, a dispensary in Norwood, and he feels like he’s found a career helping others access the benefits of cannabis. “The people who work here are dedicated, passionate, and really care,” he says. “They want you to be the best person you can be, because that makes them happy.”
The dispensary is located off of the Smith-Edwards exit on I-71. Upon entering, customers check in at the front desk with a medical cannabis card or state-issued ID. When it’s their turn, they enter the sales room and are greeted by “budtenders,” who can answer questions about the products available. Prices will fluctuate, but during the first week of sales in August The Landing was selling 2.3 grams of cannabis for $30-$55, depending on the strain. Half an ounce was going for $110 to $203. The store also sells other types of products, including tinctures, edibles, and topicals.
On the first day of legal recreational sales, the store served 404 customers. The space was so full at times that people had to line up outside, because the building had reached fire marshal capacity. Nelson says he’s looking forward to an update to sales guidelines, which he anticipates happening later this year. For one, customers should eventually be able to look at and smell different products before buying, which is not allowed under the current guidelines. Customers can decide what products to buy at the store or order online and pick up their purchase inside or sometimes at a drive-through window, depending on the dispensary.
Ohio’s system, from seed to sale, operates fully within the state’s borders. While there are a few multi-state cannabis companies, each state has its separate set of rules and regulations. Christy Bezuijen is managing director of commercial at Firelands Scientific, which has cultivation, processing, and dispensary licenses in Ohio, including The Landing dispensaries in Norwood and Monroe, and also does business in West Virginia. She praises the new Division of Cannabis Control, calling its first superintendent, Jim Canepa, “a breath of fresh air.”
Canepa declined an interview request, but the division pledges to “ensure fair access to the non-medical cannabis marketplace,” “reduce or crush the black market for cannabis,” and “alleviate over concentration of eventual businesses in the Ohio market.” “Going forward the goal is to provide a level playing field for our operators and to continue ensuring that the products available to consumers are safe and meet the division’s highest standards,” writes spokesman James Crawford in an e-mail.
Back at King City Gardens, cofounder Caveh Azadeh praises the state for controlling the number of licenses granted to the cannabis industry. Michigan didn’t. And now prices—and quality, Azadeh argues— have plunged there. He’s excited to see where the recreational market takes them.
“Ohio is one of the largest states in the country,” says Azadeh. The medical market was serving about 165,000 people before recreational sales began and there are roughly 11.7 million people living in Ohio, he says, so the industry eventually grows 10 times if 10 percent of Ohioans buy legal weed. “It’s an opportunity that was appealing to us. Ohio is very regulated, but we like that because it ensures quality, consistency, and stable pricing.”
Common Questions About the Recreational Marijuana Industry
HOW DO I BUY?
If you’re 21, take a valid state ID to a licensed dispensary. Most dispensaries accept debit cards and cash; some have ATMs inside.
WHERE DO I BUY?
So far, 27 dispensaries in Southwest Ohio have been issued operational licenses to sell both medical marijuana and recreational adult-use marijuana products.
HOW DO I KNOW WHAT I WANT?
Talk to store clerks at the dispensary. Tell them what feeling you’re trying to achieve and how you’d like to ingest the cannabis. They can help you understand the various types of products and strains.
HOW MUCH MARIJUANA CAN I POSSESS AT ONE TIME?
2.5 ounces.
HOW MANY PLANTS CAN I GROW?
Up to six plants per person or up to 12 in one household.
CAN I DRIVE AFTER OR WHILE SMOKING MARIJUANA?
No. It is illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana in every state, including Ohio.
CAN I SMOKE MARIJUANA ANYWHERE?
No, marijuana falls under the state’s smoking ban, which prohibits smoking in enclosed public areas, with a few exceptions. The state also prohibits smoking cannabis on an outdoor patio at bars or restaurants.
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