Virginia Senate Committee Advances Bill To Legalize Marijuana Sales Despite Governor’s Opposition
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Lawmakers on a Virginia Senate committee have greenlit a proposal to legalize and regulate adult-use marijuana sales in the state, advancing a bill from Sen. Aaron Rouse (D) on a 8–7 vote.
Friday’s OK from the Senate Committee on Rehabilitation and Social Services clears the first hurdle on the measure’s journey during Virginia’s short, 30-day legislative session this year. Even if the legal sales legislation is passed by lawmakers, however, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has signaled he’ll again veto the reform as his did with a similar proposal last year.
The measure, SB 970, is one of a pair of bills introduced earlier this month by Rouse and Del. Paul Krizek (D). Last year the two lawmakers presented competing versions of a legal sales framework, ultimately arriving at a compromise that passed the legislature but was vetoed by Youngkin.
SB 970 and the Krizek’s companion House of Delegates bill, HB 2485, pick up where lawmakers left off on the cannabis proposal.
“I’m proud to have brought forth a framework for adult-use cannabis through a structured license application process,” Rouse said before Friday’s committee vote. “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.
Prior to approving the legislation, the panel made minor technical amendments to fix certain references to existing statute. The bill now heads to the Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee.
Krizek, the House sponsor, told Marijuana Moment last month that “we’re gonna do the same retail cannabis bill” as last session, adding that further amendments could of course happen over the course of the legislative session.
Adults would be able to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana from regulated retailers under the, 82-page legislation, with sales set to commence no earlier than May 1, 2026. 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.
Since the bill’s introduction, Youngkin in his recent State of the Commonwealth address 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,” Youngkin said in his recent address.
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.
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.
Supporters of regulating commercial sales in the state say 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.
JM Pedini, development director for the advocacy group NORML and executive director for Virginia NORML, pushed back on comments by Youngkin after the address that marijuana is “bad for youth.”
“What’s actually ‘bad for youth’ is leaving the control of Virginia’s marijuana market to illicit operators,” they said. “Data gleaned from decades of real world regulatory experience with cannabis in the U.S. clearly show that states which take marijuana off the street corner and place it behind an age-verified counter see a drop in youth use. In fact, nationwide, youth cannabis use has reached historic lows.”
According to a federally funded survey, rates of teen use continue to decline as more states legalize the substance. The poll also found a significant drop in perceptions by youth that cannabis is easy to access in 2024 despite the widening adult-use marketplace.
Krizek, the House sponsor, said 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.”
Separately, some members of Virginia’s law enforcement community have complained that illegal activity around marijuana has become a major contributor to violent crime in the state. Rouse has responded that legalization would in fact reduce violence and illegal sales.
“Our young people are killing each other over something where we could attempt to mitigate those interactions by regulating marijuana,” he said last year.
Youngkin greeted even more minor cannabis reforms coldly last session. He vetoed another 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.
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.
The post Virginia Senate Committee Advances Bill To Legalize Marijuana Sales Despite Governor’s Opposition appeared first on Marijuana Moment.
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