Hemp farmers: Future uncertain with no plan from Ohio lawmakers on adult-use
Nearly three months after it was passed by voters, the future of adult-use marijuana in Ohio is still up in the air without a plan from lawmakers.
This also means it's unclear for hemp farmers like Eric and Yvonne Boltz.
Boltz to Nutz is a biodiverse farm in Hamilton with hemp being one of their main crops. The farm grows hemp to extract CBD and CBG to make tinctures, salves, and other products.
“Our business is basically word of mouth. The people who like our products tell their friends and that’s how we’ve grown the business,” said Eric.
Growing hemp sustains their nonprofit, providing accessible farm-to-table cooking classes for people with disabilities. It's a smaller operation, growing only 1,100 plants per season. The farm first started cultivating in 2020 and processing their crops in the fall of 2023.
Eric started using and extracting his own hemp to treat side effects from a spinal cord injury which led him to want to help others.
“Many of the medicines that I was given for the symptoms of spinal cord injury had a lot of negative side effects. They don’t really work that well or they work for a few day or a week or two then you have to up the dose. Pretty soon you’re at the max dose and it doesn’t work anymore,” said Eric.
They extract the oils through a "solventless" method, using a heated press machine to squeeze it out.
“By far the number one way that people extract cannabinoids from hemp and cannabis is typically using butane or hexane. We don’t wanna use that for a couple of reasons, one being that if it’s not fully removed it harmful to the human," said Eric.
Eric said that while it’s not difficult to remove, it's dangerous to work with. He said fires and explosions have happened in the industry when people aren’t handling the chemicals correctly. He said that straying away from those commonly used chemicals also adds another layer of safety for people with disabilities.
One chemical they do work with, but not often, is ethanol. Eric said that it's less volatile than butane. His background in physics, and his wife Yvonne’s in chemistry, made it easy to pick up.
They’ve invested in this industry and say with adult–use marijuana laws still needing to be ironed out, their future could be in legislators’ hands.
“We’re one of many very small cultivators and processors who very much have invested into this industry and are threatened by the activity of the legislature who seek to broaden the definition of recreational marijuana. So, their political contributors can harness more of the market share, taking it away from valid businesses who have been Operating for years already,” said Eric.
State lawmakers have discussed the possibility of lowering the level of THC allowed in hemp and marijuana.
“The original proposition that the House came up with would have made full spectrum CBD illegal by redefining marijuana and hemp to lower that amount of THC that’s allowed to be in a product,” said Yvonne. “The rules that the Ohio legislature wanted to put in place would have made using broad spectrum or full spectrum CBD products derived from hemp, that aren't psychoactive, not intoxicating at all, illegal because there’s no way to produce those things without having what they were gonna change their definition to.”
She believes that this would impact people who benefit from using cannabinoids.
“There are people who are teachers, or doctors, or pharmacists, or childcare who cannot use THC, but can use CBD. So, those people who use CBD, it cuts into the medical marijuana industry and by making full spectrum CBD illegal and considered marijuana, you’d take that medication from people. You would also close down that part of the business and that competition,” said Yvonne.
She said that the only way hemp processors could reduce the THC in hemp is to take it apart. The Boltz’ call it "hotdogging."
“You have to take the individual parts of the cannabinoids and put them back together to have a full spectrum product get to the ancillary entourage effect of the plant materials. We know full spectrum CBD is most effective because it has those ancillary plant materials, the terpenes, the chlorophylls, things that we don’t totally understand because in the 70s when laws were passed for marijuana, we didn't do any research into that. So, we're just now doing research into the endocannabinoid system and how powerful that is and how it can affect things," said Yvonne.
Yvonne said that the complexity of the full plant can't be achieved by taking out parts of the plant.
Both of them believe that something bigger is at play.
“CBD being accessible to almost all people is a threat to the marijuana industry and is a threat to the pharmaceutical industries,” said Yvonne. “So, there are a lot of powerful players out there who are wanting to eliminate that threat, that competition, and all it does is hurt peoples,” said Yvonne.
