Governor Glenn Youngkin is rolling out his amendments to legislation this week. And, one set of amendments is aimed at products with THC currently available on store shelves.
When they ended their session last month, members of the General Assembly sent the governor a bill to crack down on the kind of products with THC often available at smoke shops and gas stations. JM Pedini at Virginia NORML says one of the governor's amendments seemed to be aimed at making sure CBD products were not excluded in the process.
"While these proposed amendments would remove synthetic marijuana-like products from store shelves, it would not completely remove products that contain THC in amounts which might be intoxicating to consumers," Pedini explains.
Jason Amatucci at the Virginia Hemp Coalition says the governor's amendments make what he considers a horrible bill a little bit better, but not much.
"Everybody needs to understand what the politicians are actually doing here, not to let them spin it to act like they did something. Well yeah, you sure did something," Amatucci says. "You actually killed the hemp industry, and you killed jobs in Virginia, and you killed small businesses. You killed minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses."
Lawmakers will return to Richmond next month to consider these amendments and all the others he's rolling out this week.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
