Virginia House Bill To Legalize Retail Marijuana Sales Moves Forward, But Threat Of Veto Looms

Members of a Virginia House subcommittee have advanced a bill that would legalize retail cannabis sales in the commonwealth, where personal use and possession are already legal.

It’s widely expected that even if the bill passes out of the legislature, however, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) will veto it.

The proposal, from Del. Paul Krizek (D), passed out a House General Laws subcommittee on a 5–1 vote on Friday, about a week after a separate Senate committee advanced a companion bill from Sen. Aaron Rouse (D). The votes come as lawmakers sprint through this year’s short, 30-day legislative session.

Prior to approving the legislation, the House panel made minor technical amendments to fix certain references to existing statute. It next proceeds to the full General Laws Committee and subsequently the House Appropriations Committee.

If enacted, the legislation, HB 2485, would allow adults to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana from regulated, state-licensed retailers. Sales would begin no earlier than May 1, 2026, though regulators at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority could begin issuing business licenses in September of this year.

Purchases of adult-use marijuana would be taxed at up to 11.625 percent. Municipal governments could ban marijuana establishments locally, but only with the support of voters.

“With this legislation, Virginia has a really great opportunity to take marijuana off the street corner and place it behind an age-verified counter,” Krizek, the subcommittee chair, said at Friday’s hearing, “where it would be regulated for consumer safety, ensure that it’s packaged in a manner that’s safe and appealing and make sure that young people under 21 are not able to buy it.”

Supporters of regulating commercial sales in the state emphasize that the move would not create a cannabis market in Virginia but instead regulate the state’s existing illicit market, which some estimates value at nearly $3 billion.

“Failing to enact such a measure just continues to drive Virginians toward the illicit market,” Krizek asserted, calling the bill “way overdue.”

“It was overdue last year. It’s even more overdue now to have access to cannabis that’s safe, legal and affordable,” he said.

Del. Will Morefield (R) noted at Friday’s hearing that “Whether you support marijuana use or not, we need to make every effort that we possible can to provide a safe and regulated market.”

“Reality is, possession is legal in Virginia,” he said. “I’m hearing from healthcare providers throughout the commonwealth, but especially in Southwest Virginia, that they are getting drug tests back showing positive drug tests of marijuana, but also amphetamines and other substances.”

“These are people who are smoking marijuana, but they don’t intend to use methamphetamines or other drugs,” he emphasized, “and that’s because they’re buying this substance from the illicit market.”

Del. Carrie Coyner (R) was the lone no vote on the legal sales proposal. “I’m going to try to get to yes,” she told colleagues. “I’m a no today.”

Despite both Krizek’s and Rouse’s bills having now cleared their initial hurdles in the legislature, the proposal is expected to face a cold reception if it makes it to the governor’s desk. Youngkin has signaled he’ll veto the reform, as his did with an almost identical proposal last year.

Last year the two lawmakers presented competing versions of a legal sales framework. Over the course of the session, they negotiated and ultimately arrived at a compromise that passed the legislature but was vetoed by Youngkin. The new bill revives that proposal.

“I just want to remind everyone that this bill was a major battle of stakeholders last year,” a representative for the cannabis company Jushi said at Friday’s hearing. “Consumer interests, justice advocates, medical companies, the hemp industry—everyone engaged very forcefully. And Del. Krizek and Sen. Rouse forged a compromise, which is before you.”

“My client wasn’t happy with every aspect of that,” the Jushi rep said. “Other stakeholders are not happy with every aspect of that. But I think Del. Krizek and Sen. Rouse produced a very good bill.”

Supporting the proposal were legalization proponents, justice reform advocates and members of the cannabis industry. The bill is backed by groups like NORML Virginia, Marijuana Justice and various medical marijuana and hemp businesses.

Opponents include religious groups like the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists and the Virginia Catholic Conference, as well as Youngkin and his secretary of public safety.

In his State of the Commonwealth address earlier this month, Youngkin emphasized that he has no interest in cooperating with lawmakers to legalize retail marijuana sales, claiming that doing so would hurt children, worsen mental health and increase violent crime.

“Everyone knows where I stand on establishing a retail marijuana market,” the governor said.

Use, possession and limited cultivation of cannabis by adults are already legal in Virginia, the result of a Democrat-led proposal approved by lawmakers in 2021. But Republicans, after winning control of the House and governor’s office later that year, subsequently blocked the required reenactment of a regulatory framework for retail sales. Since then, illicit stores have sprung up to meet consumer demand.

Advocates say it’s crucial to keep pushing for regulated sales.

“I’m thrilled to see a joint effort from both chambers to validate the hard work done the past few sessions by proposing what we built in 2024,” Chelsea Higgs Wise, executive director of the group Marijuana Justice, said in a statement to Marijuana Moment before Friday’s vote. “We look forward to continuing the push forward for a regulated and safer Virginia cannabis industry as we monitor the crisis of untested products spreading across the Commonwealth.”

Here’s what Virginia’s reintroduced marijuana sales legislation, SB 970 and HB 2485, would do:

• Retail sales could begin as of May 1, 2026.
• Adults would be able to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana in a single transaction, or up to an equivalent amount of other cannabis products as determined by regulators.
• A tax of up to 11.625 percent would apply to the retail sale of any cannabis product. That would include a state retail and use tax of 1.125 percent on top of a new marijuana-specific tax of 8 percent. Local governments could levy an additional 2.5 percent.
• The Virginia Cannabis Control Authority would oversee licensing and regulation of the new industry. Its board of directors would have the authority to control possession, sale, transportation, distribution, delivery and testing of marijuana.
• Local governments could ban marijuana establishments, but only if voters approve an opt-out referendum.
• Locations of retail outlets could not be within 1,000 feet of another marijuana retailer.
• Cultivators would be regulated by space devoted to marijuana cultivation, known as canopy size. Both indoor and outdoor marijuana cultivation would be allowed, though only growers in lower tiers—with lower limits on canopy size—could grow plants outside. Larger growers would need to cultivate plants indoors. Secure greenhouses would qualify as indoor cultivation.
• Only direct, face-to-face transactions would be permitted. The legislation would prohibit the use of other avenues, such as vending machines, drive-through windows, internet-based sales platforms and delivery services.
• Existing medical marijuana providers that enter the adult-use market could apply to open up to five additional retail establishments, which would need to be colocated at their existing licensed facilities.
• Serving sizes would be capped at 10 milligrams THC, with no more than 100 mg THC per package.
• No person could be granted or hold an interest in more than five total licenses, not including transporter licenses.
• People with convictions for felonies or crimes involving moral turpitude within the past seven years would be ineligible to apply for licensing, as would employees of police or sheriff’s departments if they’re responsible for enforcement of the penal, traffic or motor vehicle laws of the commonwealth.
• An equity-focused microbusiness program would grant licenses to entities at least two-thirds owned and directly controlled by eligible applicants, which include people with past cannabis misdemeanors, family members of people with past convictions, military veterans, individuals who’ve lived at least three of the past five years in a “historically economically disadvantaged community,” people who’ve attended schools in those areas and individuals who received a federal Pell grant or attended a college or university where at least 30 percent of students are eligible for Pell grants.
• A “historically economically disadvantaged community” is defined as an area that has recorded marijuana possession offenses at or above 150 percent of the statewide average between 2009 and 2019.
• Tax revenue from the program would first cover the costs of administering and enforcing the state’s cannabis system. After that, 60 percent of remaining funds would go toward supporting the state’s Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund, 25 percent would fund substance use disorder treatment and prevention, 10 percent would go to pre-K programs for at-risk children and 5 percent would fund a public health and awareness campaign.
• Adults could also share up to 2.5 ounces with other adults without financial remuneration, though gray-market “gifting” of marijuana as part of another transaction would be punishable as a Class 2 misdemeanor and a Class 1 misdemeanor on second and subsequent offenses.
• A number of other new criminal penalties would be created. Knowingly selling or giving marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia to someone under 21, for example, would be a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a maximum $2,500 fine, as would knowingly selling cannabis to someone reasonably believed to be intoxicated. It would also be a Class 1 misdemeanor to advertise the sale of marijuana paraphernalia to people under 21.
• Knowingly obtaining marijuana on behalf of someone under 21 would be a Class 1 misdemeanor.
• People under 21 who possess or use marijuana, or attempt to obtain it, would be subject to a civil penalty of no more than $25 and ordered to enter a substance use disorder treatment and/or education program.
• Illegal cultivation or manufacture of marijuana, not including legal homegrow, would be a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $2,500 fine.
• People could process homegrown marijuana into products such as edibles, but butane extraction or the use of other volatile solvents would be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Krizek told Marijuana Moment last month that it’s possible some Republican lawmakers might challenge Youngkin’s opposition to legal cannabis sales given that the governor’s term ends early next year. Advocates hope the governor’s replacement will be more favorable to regulated sales, noting that a handful of Republican leaders in some other states have been more open to marijuana reform.

Jason Blanchette, president of the Virginia Cannabis Association, told Marijuana Moment earlier this month that he expects Youngkin would again veto a legal sales bill if it reaches his desk this session, but added that it’s nevertheless important that lawmakers take up the matter.

“We’ve got one more year of Youngkin, and then if we can get it out, get it on his desk, that’ll be two times the Democrats have gotten the exact same bill through,” he said, referring to the fact that the term-limited governor’s time in office ends early next year. “The feeling is that’ll set some very strong precedent for the next governor.”

Youngkin rejected even more minor cannabis last legislative session. He vetoed a proposal, for example, that would have prevented the state from considering marijuana use alone as evidence of child abuse or neglect despite the measure winning unanimous or near-unanimous approval in votes on the Senate floor.

Following that action, Del. Rae Cousins (D), the bill’s sponsor, accused the governor of “turning his back on the needs of our children and neglecting their well-being by encouraging the courts to move forward with unnecessary family separations.”

Separately, last April, Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Shelton said her agency had received a sufficient number of reports of minors getting sick from cannabis products that the commonwealth would create a “special surveillance system” to track the issue.

Separately this session, on Thursday a Virginia Senate committee advanced legislation that would fund clinical trials involving veterans and “breakthrough therapies” as designated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including psychedelic substances such as psilocybin and MDMA.

The new bill references the FDA breakthrough therapy designation and the federal Right to Try Act—intended to give patients with terminal conditions the opportunity to try investigational medications that have not been approved for general use—as well as a number of conditions that research shows psychedelics may help treat, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), treatment-resistant depression, major depressive disorder and traumatic brain injury.

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