Cannabis laws in Ohio

Medical cannabis is legal in the state of Ohio. A patchwork of cities in Ohio have decriminalized marijuana possession, though it is not decriminalized on a state-wide basis.

How to Get a Medical Card in Ohio

To receive legal medical marijuana in the state of Ohio a prospective patient must be placed on the state registry. To qualify you must receive a patient registration submission from a recommending physician, including a diagnosis or confirmation of a qualifying condition. If the patient is a minor, they must attain parental consent.

The prospective patient must then pay the required fee ($50 annually for patients and $25 for caregivers).

Qualifying Conditions

The qualifying conditions that patients in Ohio can receive medical cannabis for include:

AIDS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Alzheimer’s disease
Cancer
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
Crohn’s disease
Epilepsy or another seizure disorder
Fibromyalgia
Glaucoma
Hepatitis C
Inflammatory bowel disease
Multiple sclerosis
Pain that is either chronic and severe or intractable
Parkinson’s disease
Positive status for HIV
PTSD
Sickle cell anemia
Spinal cord disease or injury
Tourette’s syndrome
Traumatic brain injury
Ulcerative colitis

Reciprocity

Ohio does not have reciprocity for patients with medical licenses issued in other states.

Where to Buy

Medical marijuana became legal in Ohio after House Bill 523 went into effect in September, 2016.

The first medical marijuana dispensary didn’t open in the state until January, 2019, and today there are 48 state-licensed medical dispensaries across the state.

Under Ohio’s medical marijuana law, smoking is not an approved mode of intake, but dispensaries still sell dry marijuana flower for use in vaping. The following medical marijuana products are legal for distribution in Ohio’s medical marijuana dispensaries: oils, tinctures, capsules, edibles, oil and solids for vaporization, patches for transdermal administration, and flower for use in vaporizers.

According to the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, there were 78,376 registered patients in the state as of December 31, 2019, 43 licensed processors, and 590 physicians licensed to provide medical marijuana recommendations. As of January 13, 2020, 7,292 pounds of plant material had been sold in the state, and the program had totaled some $60.6 million in product sales.

Personal cultivation is not legal in Ohio, though the state has decriminalized marijuana to some degree, and possession of up to 100 grams is considered a misdemeanor that does not warrant incarceration.