While Gov. Abigail Spanberger has previously said she’d sign legislation setting up Virginia’s adult-use cannabis market, a range of shifting perspectives — across the state and the country — will affect how legal sales are established in the Commonwealth.
After enabling a medicinal marketplace through legislation, broader adult-use access was denied by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who repeatedly vetoed legislation creating a recreational sales scaffolding.
“Historically, when states expand into adult-use regulation, they do so expeditiously in order to move consumers away from the illicit market into the state's regulated marketplace,” J.M. Pedini, development director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said about the expansion of sales in other states. “Now, Virginia legalized in 2021, and here we are five years later without any access to retail cannabis for adult use.”
Del. Paul Krizek (D-Fairfax) is carrying legislation that would create a legal marketplace for those sales, augmenting legislation that initially decriminalized marijuana several years ago.
Among other stipulations, his proposal: reduces the number of retail locations from 400 to 350; defines how large cultivation areas can be; sets an 8% tax in addition to locally levied fees up to 3.5%; reallocates income derived from sales, decreasing funds for “pre-kindergarten programs for at-risk three-year-olds and four-year-olds”; allows medical licensees to transition to the new marketplace; and increases the amount of marijuana adults 21 and older can possess from one to 2.5 ounces.
Krizek’s bill also prevents localities from passing restrictions on legal cultivation or sales.
“This is what total Democrat control looks like,” said a post on the Fairfax Republicans' website discussing Adam Ebbin preparing to leave his Senate seat to lead the state's Cannabis Control Authority. “Your community’s voice? Silenced. Your ability to opt out? Eliminated. Richmond Democrats and Abigail Spanberger have decided: pot shops are coming whether you like it or not.”
A consideration for legal marijuana sales are the effects on the state’s criminal justice system, and how the substance has previously been used to disproportionately incarcerate Black and brown people. The Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission’s fiscal impact statement attached to Krizek's marketplace bill said it can’t forecast the effect on correctional facilities for adults and minors.
A separate proposal introduced by Rozia A. Henson Jr. (D-Fairfax) is aiming to mitigate the effects of marijuana’s previous criminalization. If passed, people currently incarcerated or on community supervision for offenses committed before July 1, 2021, would be eligible for a hearing to reassess their sentence. The bill includes a sunset clause, ending individuals’ ability to engage the review process on July 1, 2029.
Chelsea Higgs Wise is executive director of Marijuana Justice, an advocacy group, and said Henson’s bill was “truly a relief.”
“[T]hey will say that they don't think that these people deserve a chance,” she said about some conservatives connecting recreational marijuana users to violence. “They think that they are hardened criminals — and that's not what we have seen across the country.”
While some continue to debate cannabis’ medical applications, a pair of General Assembly proposals also address expanding access for terminally ill patients, product labeling and how marijuana is dispensed. But all these potential adjustments to the state’s marijuana laws come after President Donald Trump in December issued an executive order, directing the drug to be reclassified, in part, to enable further medical studies of its use.
“That has been a question — if this is a good thing or a bad thing, and I think that we have to hold the reality that it's both,” Higgs Wise said about the federal directive, adding that the preferred outcome of her organization is descheduling. “One of the biggest impacts of the scheduling of marijuana at all is the criminalization of people. And that impacts Black and brown people, poor people, immigrants.”
Trump’s order doesn’t guarantee immediate changes to how most Virginians would interact with marijuana, but Pedini said there’s a business-side application that could result.
“It's possible that some banks and financial institutions might be more willing to provide services to cannabis businesses after rescheduling,” she said, discussing people not currently being able to purchase marijuana products in Virginia with credit cards. “But further statutory changes would really still be required by Congress — passage of something like SAFER Banking legislation, for example — to codify these relationships.”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.