Ohio Governor Mike DeWine dropped the hammer today on what he’s calling a dangerous loophole in the law: intoxicating hemp. The Ohio Hemp Ban.
With the stroke of a pen, DeWine signed an emergency order that will force Ohio retailers to yank all intoxicating hemp products off their shelves by Tuesday, October 14, 2025. That includes gummies, cookies, candies, and other sweet treats laced with lab-cooked compounds designed to get kids high.
Why the Crackdown?
Clandestine chemists have been tinkering with the legal hemp plant to create mind-altering compounds like delta-8-THC and delta-9-THC — cousins of the stuff that gets you stoned in marijuana. Unlike marijuana, though, these hemp-based knockoffs aren’t regulated, meaning kids as young as five have been able to buy them at gas stations and corner stores.
Governor DeWine wasn’t pulling punches:
“These products are marketed to kids, sold to kids, and ingested by kids in Ohio,” he said. “When voters legalized marijuana, they voted for a regulated system with safeguards. This dangerous hemp junk sneaks around those rules.”
The Numbers Are Scary
Ohio Poison Control reports exposures to these hemp compounds in kids nearly tripled between 2021 and 2024. In 2024 alone, 555 cases involved toddlers under age 5. And about 90% of kids up to age 12 who got into intoxicating hemp ended up in the emergency room — with two-thirds hospitalized.
What Happens Next
- Under the Ohio Hemp Ban, retailers have until Oct. 14 to clear their shelves.
- After that, authorities can seize intoxicating hemp products and hit violators with $500 fines per day.
- The ban will last up to 90 days, unless lawmakers extend it.
- The Ohio Department of Agriculture will also rewrite rules to permanently exclude these products from the state’s definition of legal hemp.
The order doesn’t touch non-intoxicating hemp (like CBD) or Ohio’s regulated marijuana market. But for now, the “stoner candy” craze has a giant red stop sign in Ohio.
👉 Translation: If you’ve been buying your “edibles” at a gas station candy rack, those days are officially numbered.
