BELLAIRE – Born on April 20 – the unofficial marijuana holiday – The Holistic Cloud owner and operator and Bellaire Village Councilman Bill Schmitt was born to be in the hemp industry.

He is currently collecting signatures for a petition to combat Senate Bill 56.

Signed in January, Senate Bill 56 will revise medical and adult-use marijuana laws.

“The House, Senate and the Governor passed a law that is restricting our cannabis and hemp laws in Ohio,” Schmitt said. “They’re revoking a lot of the issues, two laws that we passed with recreational marijuana here in Ohio. And essentially what they’re doing is not listening and trying to change the will of the voters’ vote. The morning of March 20, it will go into effect unless we collect the 248,000 signatures statewide and we collect 5000 or 5% of the county’s voters in 44 of 88 counties.”

He added that when states pass cannabis laws, it’s done by a constitutional amendment.

“When you do a constitutional amendment, the governor can’t change that. We did an initiated statute, so we only collected a third of the signatures to be able to get it on the ballot,” Schmitt said. “It does give legislatures an opportunity to change some of those laws when you do it as an initiated statute because you kind of work with the state in that effect and, since we’ve been legal for over two years, we’ve been fighting this, fighting this, fighting this. Now they finally passed some laws to now recriminalize cannabis in Ohio – in a state where we legalized it, to stop people from being criminalized from cannabis.”

The new law will ban hemp products from retailers, limit smoking in public settings, reduce THC limits, change tax structure around marijuana and restrict out-of-state marijuana purchases.

“With the hemp portion of it, they’re trying to ban all Delta aids and cannabis analogs, the derivatives from hemp. And that’s what they’re trying to do, is completely ban it,” Schmitt said. “They’re saying that the packaging is directed to kids, that people are selling to minors, and there’s no rules and regulations that a 13-year old could come in and buy these products which is not true. We all operate under federal guidelines, and if we sell to a minor, we will get punished. It’s like somebody sold alcohol or cigarettes to a minor. Now they’re going to ban tobacco or alcohol completely statewide.

“What they need to do is give us rules and regulations to be able to operate as a hemp business in Ohio versus taking it completely away.” he added.

Schmitt said that he believes it makes more sense for the state to set up guidelines such as the packaging and other various regulations hemp businesses would be required to follow instead of completely banning hemp.

“This is going to stop all CBD sales and THC sales for over 6,000 shops like mine – smoke shops in Ohio, hemp dispensaries,” Schmitt said. “And it will take at least 90% of our revenue from my store. A lot of these stores will completely shut down because all they do is sell THC and CBD products.”

He added that he agrees with the state that it does need to remove some products from gas stations and corner stores.

“That’s why we need state licensed hemp dispensaries like my place – that really takes pride in the quality of their product and who really goes and does it the right way,” Schmitt said. “There are a lot of bad actors in Ohio. Ninety-five percent of the THCA products or CBD products that you do get are garbage. But there’s stores like mine and others that really take pride in the quality of their material and really are thinking about the patients first.”

The petition against Senate Bill 56 can be signed at both The Holistic Cloud locations in Bellaire or Steubenville as well as nearly every smoke shop in the Ohio Valley. Schmitt said that you can also go to noonsb56.com, the Ohioans for Cannabis Choice’s website. The website shows every location in Ohio where the petition can be signed.

Schmitt added that this is bigger than just his business. If the bill goes into effect in March, a lot of small businesses will be affected.

“If they do this, it’s going to wipe out almost all of the small businesses in my field in Ohio,” he said. “It’ll affect us, but this is the reason why dispensaries and the legal market in Ohio want this. They’re upset that guys like me make a lot of money. They want all of the money. It’s the greed that is going on in Ohio. Not only do they want to monopolize all of the cannabis in Ohio and tell you you can’t go to Michigan to get it. They want to monopolize all the hemp derivatives. They want to monopolize all the CBD to where all these products go to the Ohio dispensaries. So dispensaries are all for this. They’re going to make more money.”

Senate Bill 56 will back key voter-approved protections by adding new criminal penalties, stripping anti-discrimination protections related to cannabis use and further limiting expungement opportunities, according to Ohiohouse.gov.

“They’re taking away the social equity fund that helps with minorities and people who have been affected by the drug war, people with felonies,” Schmitt said. “We left a portion of this in the vote to help those types of people get into the industry. Well, they’re trying to wipe that completely.They’re also going to make it a criminal penalty to come back with any out of state marijuana. So if you come back from Michigan, from a legal state to Ohio, a legal state, they want to recriminalize that.”

He added that he believes the biggest problem with Senate Bill 56 is, along with the state trying to restrict the hemp laws, the proposed legislation will also provide an opportunity to ticket and fine cannabis users.

“I completely agree that we do need some type of regulations with the hemp field. Not everybody should be able to sell these products. I completely agree about that part. But when it comes to the cannabis side of it, they’re just trying to give themselves an opportunity to give cannabis users tickets now, and we’re getting punished for something that’s legal in our state,” Schmitt said. “That’s the whole reason why we voted issue two is so we would quit getting punished for having cannabis in the state of Ohio.”