Virginia Senators Approve Marijuana Record-Sealing Bill, Rejecting Separate Measure To Allow Police Searches Based On Cannabis Smell

A Virginia Senate committee has advanced legislation that would seal criminal records pertaining to simple marijuana possession offenses and revise the state’s record-sealing process around cannabis paraphernalia crimes. The panel also shot down a separate proposal that would have allowed law enforcement to use the odor of marijuana as probable cause for a search.

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 9–3 in favor of the record-sealing bill on Monday, with two members abstaining. It next proceeds to the Finance and Appropriations Committee.

The odor bill, meanwhile, was passed by indefinitely—effectively killing it—on a 8–6 vote.

Sen. Scott Surovell (D), the sponsor of the record-sealing bill, said that it “ensures that all possession of marijuana charges and convictions will actually be sealed.”

Existing law, he said, falls short of offering meaningful relief for conduct that’s now legal in the commonwealth.

“The way the legislation that’s currently on the books works is a marijuana conviction or charge is only sealed if it appears in the CCRE,” the lawmaker said, referring to the state’s Central Criminal Records Exchange, “which is basically like hardly anything.” Most people, he explained, “when they’re hit for marijuana, get charged by summons. They don’t get arrested and fingerprinted.”

Surovell’s bill, SB 1466, also seals ancillary records related to cannabis charges and arrests,”including things like if you have a suspended sentence, probation, parole violations, contempt of court violations, failures to appear in bond appeals—those ancillary matters will be sealed,” he said.

The measure landed in the legislature last week alongside a House of Delegates companion bill, HB 2723, from Rep. Charniele Herring (D).

Use, possession and limited cultivation of marijuana by adults has been legal in Virginia since the enactment of a 2021 law.

Under then new legislation, charges and convictions for “any criminal or civil offense” around marijuana possession would be “sealed without the entry of a court order,” Surovell’s bill says.

The provision would not apply to certain Department of Motor Vehicle records affected by federal record retention requirements. Business screening services that refer to people’s criminal histories or driving records, however, would be required to “promptly delete” sealed cannabis charges and convictions.

Chelsea Higgs Wise, executive director of the advocacy group Marijuana Justice, said her organization and other allies are pushing for the legislation’s passage.

“Marijuana Justice, as well as our full Cannajustice Coalition, which includes Justice Forward Virginia, RISE for Youth and Virginia Student Power Network,” she said in an email last week, “is dedicated to implementing the 2025 record sealing process to repair the harm of past marijuana offenses and even with the changes, we still support of the proposals made by Delegate Herring and Senator Surovell.”

The Virginia State Crime Commission voted earlier this month to approve a number of recommendations related to record sealing, including around cannabis.

“What the legislation before you does is ensures that all possession of marijuana offenses are sealed, regardless of whether they’re a conviction or not a conviction, without the entry of a court order,” Deputy Director Colin Drabert told fellow commission members at the time.

Last March, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed a bill to provide resentencing relief for people convicted of past cannabis crimes. Had it become law, many marijuana-related criminal cases would have needed to be resentenced by the end of 2024. People whose sentences for other crimes were enhanced because of a prior marijuana conviction, meanwhile, would had received hearings by April 1 of this year.

In his veto statement at the time, the governor wrote that “This bill grants eligibility to a significant number of violent felons who have already received a full and fair hearing,” adding: “Now is not the time to allow an imprudent resentencing process that undermines public safety.”

As for the odor bill—SB 947, from Sen. Bill DeSteph (R), which the Senate committee scuttled on Monday—it sought to undo a protection meant to limit law enforcement officers’ use of marijuana odor as a justification for stopping and searching individuals.

“In 2021, a Virginia law took effect prohibiting police from stopping, searching, or seizing any person, place, or thing based solely on the odor of cannabis,” explained JM Pedini, development director for the advocacy group NORML and executive director for Virginia NORML. “Every year since, Virginia Republicans have attempted to roll back this progress.”

“Repealing this law would bring back the rampant claims of ‘I smell marijuana’ used as justification for traffic stops and searches,” Pedini said in a message to Marijuana Moment. “Cannabis is legal in Virginia for medical use and for adults 21 and older. Those lawfully possessing cannabis ought not be subject to stops and searches based solely on its odor, and wisely the committee once again rejected this effort.

Higgs Wise, at Marijuana Justice, said Monday that justice advocates will continue to fight efforts to roll back the civil rights protection.

“Every year they’re going to try to repeal this pretextual stop criteria,” she said, “and we will fight it every year with our partners, Justice Forward Virginia.”

Meanwhile, as Virginia lawmakers scramble through this year’s short, 30-day legislative session, lawmakers in both the House and Senate are working to legalize commercial sales of adult-use marijuana. Though use, possession and limited home cultivation are legal, commercial sales remain prohibited.

Last week, panels in both chambers voted to advance the legal sales legislation, though it faces a veto threat.

Lawmakers passed a commercial legalization measure last February, but Youngkin vetoed the legislation measure the following month.

Del. Paul Krizek (D) and Sen. Aaron Rouse (D) each sponsored separate legal sales bills last year, but this year they introduced a combined proposal reflecting the compromises made last session.

If enacted, the legislation 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 a hearing last Friday, “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.”

A week earlier, the Senate Committee on Rehabilitation and Social Services advanced Rouse’s bill on an 8–7 vote.

“I’m proud to have brought forth a framework for adult-use cannabis through a structured license application process,” Rouse said at the time. “This bill prioritizes public safety in creating a well-regulated marketplace that keeps adult products out of the hands of kids. In recent years we have seen an unchecked proliferation of illegal and unregulated marijuana stores. This has put Virginians at risk as unlicensed drug dealers sell billions of dollars of untested and untaxed products, frequently to children.”

“A well-regulated retail market is a necessity for public safety and will ensure that products are tested for safety, that they’re accurately labeled, sold in a controlled environment and kept away from kids,” he said.

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.

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.

Last week, meanwhile, 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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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

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