Virginia Plan To Legalize Marijuana Sales Heads To Governor’s Desk Following Passage By Both Legislative Chambers

Each chambers of Virginia’s legislature handed an identical laws to legalize leisure marijuana gross sales on Wednesday, sending the proposal to the desk of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R).

The governor, nonetheless, has already indicated he intends veto the payments—as he did with an analogous lawmaker-passed proposal final yr.

Lawmakers within the Home of Representatives voted 53–44 in favor of SB 970, from Sen. Aaron Rouse (D). That invoice handed out of the Senate final month.

The Senate on Wednesday, in the meantime, handed the Home model of the laws, HB 2485, from Del. Paul Krizek (D), on a 21–18 vote. That measure received Home approval final week.

There was no debate or dialogue on the chamber flooring on Wednesday past temporary remarks describing every measure.

If the proposal had been to develop into regulation, it could enable adults 21 and older to buy as much as 2.5 ounces of marijuana from regulated, state-licensed retailers.

Use, possession and restricted cultivation of hashish by adults are already authorized in Virginia, the results of a Democrat-led proposal authorized by lawmakers in 2021. However Republicans, after profitable management of the Home and governor’s workplace later that yr, subsequently blocked the required reenactment of a regulatory framework for retail gross sales. Since then, illicit shops have sprung as much as meet shopper demand, feeding an unlawful market that some estimates worth at almost $3 billion.

Youngkin’s workplace, for its half, has already signaled that the governor would veto any related plan if it passes within the coming session.

Requested by Virginia Public Media (VPM) late final yr in regards to the probability of a veto, Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the Youngkin, informed the outlet: “I believe you may cite the truth that time and time once more he has been very clear on that.”

Right here’s what Virginia’s reintroduced marijuana gross sales laws, SB 970 and HB 2485, would do:

• Retail gross sales might start as of Might 1, 2026.
• Adults would have the ability to buy as much as 2.5 ounces of marijuana in a single transaction, or as much as an equal quantity of different hashish merchandise as decided by regulators.
• A tax of as much as 11.625 p.c would apply to the retail sale of any hashish product. That would come with a state retail and use tax of 1.125 p.c on prime of a brand new marijuana-specific tax of 8 p.c. Native governments might levy an extra 2.5 p.c.
• The Virginia Hashish Management Authority would oversee licensing and regulation of the brand new trade. Its board of administrators would have the authority to manage possession, sale, transportation, distribution, supply and testing of marijuana.
• Native governments might ban marijuana institutions, however provided that voters approve an opt-out referendum.
• Areas of shops couldn’t be inside 1,000 toes of one other marijuana retailer.
• Cultivators could be regulated by area dedicated to marijuana cultivation, generally known as cover dimension. Each indoor and outside marijuana cultivation could be allowed, although solely growers in decrease tiers—with decrease limits on cover dimension—might develop vegetation exterior. Bigger growers would want to domesticate vegetation indoors. Safe greenhouses would qualify as indoor cultivation.
• Solely direct, face-to-face transactions could be permitted. The laws would prohibit using different avenues, akin to merchandising machines, drive-through home windows, internet-based gross sales platforms and supply providers.
• Current medical marijuana suppliers that enter the adult-use market might apply to speak in confidence to 5 extra retail institutions, which might must be colocated at their present licensed services.
• Serving sizes could be capped at 10 milligrams THC, with not more than 100 mg THC per bundle.
• No particular person could possibly be granted or maintain an curiosity in additional than 5 complete licenses, not together with transporter licenses.
• Folks with convictions for felonies or crimes involving ethical turpitude throughout the previous seven years could be ineligible to use for licensing, as would staff of police or sheriff’s departments in the event that they’re accountable for enforcement of the penal, site visitors or motorized vehicle legal guidelines of the commonwealth.
• An equity-focused microbusiness program would grant licenses to entities at the very least two-thirds owned and instantly managed by eligible candidates, which embrace folks with previous hashish misdemeanors, relations of individuals with previous convictions, navy veterans, people who’ve lived at the very least three of the previous 5 years in a “traditionally economically deprived neighborhood,” individuals who’ve attended colleges in these areas and people who acquired a federal Pell grant or attended a university or college the place at the very least 30 p.c of scholars are eligible for Pell grants.
• A “traditionally economically deprived neighborhood” is outlined as an space that has recorded marijuana possession offenses at or above 150 p.c of the statewide common between 2009 and 2019.
• Tax income from this system would first cowl the prices of administering and imposing the state’s hashish system. After that, 60 p.c of remaining funds would go towards supporting the state’s Hashish Fairness Reinvestment Fund, 25 p.c would fund substance use dysfunction remedy and prevention, 10 p.c would go to pre-Ok packages for at-risk youngsters and 5 p.c would fund a public well being and consciousness marketing campaign.
• Adults might additionally share as much as 2.5 ounces with different adults with out monetary remuneration, although gray-market “gifting” of marijuana as a part of one other transaction could be punishable as a Class 2 misdemeanor and a Class 1 misdemeanor on second and subsequent offenses.
• A lot of different new legal penalties could be created. Knowingly promoting or giving marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia to somebody below 21, for instance, could be a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by as much as a yr in jail and a most $2,500 fantastic, as would knowingly promoting hashish to somebody fairly believed to be intoxicated. It could even be a Class 1 misdemeanor to promote the sale of marijuana paraphernalia to folks below 21.
• Knowingly acquiring marijuana on behalf of somebody below 21 could be a Class 1 misdemeanor.
• Folks below 21 who possess or use marijuana, or try to acquire it, could be topic to a civil penalty of not more than $25 and ordered to enter a substance use dysfunction remedy and/or schooling program.
• Unlawful cultivation or manufacture of marijuana, not together with authorized homegrow, could be a Class 6 felony, punishable by as much as 5 years imprisonment and a $2,500 fantastic.
• Folks might course of homegrown marijuana into merchandise akin to edibles, however butane extraction or using different risky solvents could be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Krizek and Rouse every sponsored separate laws final yr to legalize a business hashish system within the state, plans that finally merged right into a compromise proposal that was handed by lawmakers however vetoed by Youngkin.

In a veto message on the time, the governor wrote that “the proposed legalization of retail marijuana within the Commonwealth endangers Virginians’ well being and security.”

Youngkin is ineligible to run for reelection, and advocates hope his substitute will probably be extra favorable to regulated gross sales. They’ve famous {that a} handful of Republican leaders in different states have been extra open to marijuana reform.

Jason Blanchette, president of the Virginia Hashish Affiliation, informed Marijuana Second earlier this month that he expects Youngkin would once more veto a authorized gross sales invoice if it reaches his desk this session, however added that it’s nonetheless vital that lawmakers take up the matter.

“We’ve acquired another yr of Youngkin, after which if we are able to get it out, get it on his desk, that’ll be two instances the Democrats have gotten the very same invoice by,” he mentioned. “The sensation is that’ll set some very robust precedent for the subsequent governor.”

Earlier this month, in the meantime, the total Senate unanimously handed a separate invoice that might pave the best way for psychedelic-assisted remedy for veterans. It subsequent goes to the Home of Delegates.

SB 1101, from Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D), would set up a six-member state advisory council to check and make additional suggestions about therapies involving U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA)-designated “breakthrough therapies,” together with substances akin to psilocybin and MDMA.

As launched by Hashmi final month, the invoice would have additionally created a fund to assist medical trials into breakthrough remedy therapies for veterans, however a substitute adopted in committee eliminated references to that fund, leaving solely the portion of the proposal that might create the advisory council.

“That individual substitute actually pares the invoice right down to create throughout the Division of Well being the Breakthrough Therapies for Veteran Suicide Prevention Advisory Council,” Hashmi mentioned on the time. “One factor that we all know is that veteran suicide stays a essential disaster level, with charges considerably greater amongst veterans than the civilian inhabitants. Given the truth that we now have such a excessive veteran neighborhood right here in Virginia, this laws is very crucial.”

The measure is an up to date model of an analogous proposal final yr, SB 229, that cleared the Senate however didn’t make it out of the Home.

Additionally this month, lawmakers superior proposals that might seal data associated to marijuana. An modification to the record-sealing laws moved the enactment date of the proposal to July 1, 2026, which workers mentioned was supposed to permit Virginia State Police to implement the change.

Photograph courtesy of Chris Wallis // Aspect Pocket Photographs.