The high beta regime of the lower hybrid drift instability is studied using a fully electromagnetic dispersion relation in the local approximation. The electrons are described using a kinetic model that includes the effect of finite beta orbit modifications and three different models (unmagnetized, magnetized without ∇Bdrifts, and magnetized with ∇Bdrifts) are used for the ions. It is found that when magnetized ions without ∇Bdrifts are considered, the modes remain unstable for larger values of beta and the spectrum is very different from the unmagnetized ion case. When ∇Bdrift effects are included, the results became very similar to the unmagnetized ion case and some arguments are provided to explain this behavior.