Virginia Marijuana Sales Legalization Bill Gets Initial Approval On Senate Floor

Virginia’s Senate is transferring ahead with a plan that may legalize and regulate business marijuana gross sales within the state, advancing a invoice from Sen. Aaron Rouse (D) on a voice vote Thursday afternoon.

The second studying approval units up the invoice, SB 970, for a 3rd studying and remaining flooring vote, anticipated quickly.

In the meantime, a companion invoice within the Home of Delegates—HB 2485, from Del. Paul Krizek (D)—handed out of committee earlier this week and is now awaiting preliminary votes on the ground of that chamber.

If enacted, the laws would enable adults 21 and older to buy as much as 2.5 ounces of marijuana from regulated, state-licensed retailers. Gross sales would start no sooner than Might 1, 2026, although regulators on the Virginia Hashish Management Authority may start issuing enterprise licenses in September of this yr.

Purchases of adult-use marijuana could be taxed at as much as 11.625 p.c. Municipal governments may ban marijuana institutions domestically, however solely with the help of voters. Possession and residential cultivation of marijuana is already authorized within the state.

Final yr the legislature handed a virtually equivalent authorized gross sales proposal, nevertheless it was later vetoed by Gov, Glenn Youngkin (R). It’s broadly anticipated that even when the reintroduced invoice passes out of the legislature, Youngkin will as soon as once more veto it.

Use, possession and restricted cultivation of hashish by adults are already authorized in Virginia, the results of a Democrat-led proposal accepted 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.

“This invoice doesn’t legalize marijuana,” Rouse instructed a Senate panel earlier this week, repeating a frequent speaking level by promoters of the reform. “It is a bipartisan effort to restrict and mitigate the illicit market and drive it out whereas offering revenues for our localities in our state.”

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

• Retail gross sales may start as of Might 1, 2026.
• Adults would be capable of 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 high of a brand new marijuana-specific tax of 8 p.c. Native governments may levy a further 2.5 p.c.
• The Virginia Hashish Management Authority would oversee licensing and regulation of the brand new business. Its board of administrators would have the authority to regulate possession, sale, transportation, distribution, supply and testing of marijuana.
• Native governments may ban marijuana institutions, however provided that voters approve an opt-out referendum.
• Places of stores couldn’t be inside 1,000 toes of one other marijuana retailer.
• Cultivators could be regulated by house dedicated to marijuana cultivation, often called cover measurement. Each indoor and outside marijuana cultivation could be allowed, although solely growers in decrease tiers—with decrease limits on cover measurement—may develop crops outdoors. Bigger growers would wish to domesticate crops 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 companies.
• Current medical marijuana suppliers that enter the adult-use market may apply to speak in confidence to 5 extra retail institutions, which might have to be colocated at their present licensed amenities.
• Serving sizes could be capped at 10 milligrams THC, with not more than 100 mg THC per bundle.
• No individual may very well be granted or maintain an curiosity in additional than 5 whole 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 workers of police or sheriff’s departments in the event that they’re answerable 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 not less than two-thirds owned and straight managed by eligible candidates, which embody folks with previous hashish misdemeanors, members of the family of individuals with previous convictions, navy veterans, people who’ve lived not less than three of the previous 5 years in a “traditionally economically deprived neighborhood,” individuals who’ve attended faculties in these areas and people who acquired a federal Pell grant or attended a university or college the place not less than 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 therapy 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 may 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.
• Plenty of different new prison penalties could be created. Knowingly promoting or giving marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia to somebody underneath 21, for instance, could be a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by as much as a yr in jail and a most $2,500 superb, as would knowingly promoting hashish to somebody moderately believed to be intoxicated. It might even be a Class 1 misdemeanor to promote the sale of marijuana paraphernalia to folks underneath 21.
• Knowingly acquiring marijuana on behalf of somebody underneath 21 could be a Class 1 misdemeanor.
• Folks underneath 21 who possess or use marijuana, or try and receive it, could be topic to a civil penalty of not more than $25 and ordered to enter a substance use dysfunction therapy and/or training 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 superb.
• Folks may course of homegrown marijuana into merchandise akin to edibles, however butane extraction or using different unstable solvents could be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Krizek, for his half, instructed Marijuana Second final month that it’s potential some Republican lawmakers may problem Youngkin’s opposition to authorized hashish gross sales provided that the governor’s time period ends early subsequent yr. Advocates hope the governor’s alternative can be extra favorable to regulated gross sales, noting {that a} handful of Republican leaders in another states have been extra open to marijuana reform.

Jason Blanchette, president of the Virginia Hashish Affiliation, instructed 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 however vital that lawmakers take up the matter.

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

Individually this week, legislative panels within the state superior proposals that may seal information associated to marijuana and start planning entry to psychedelic-assisted remedy for veterans.

An modification to the record-sealing laws adopted within the committee’s Sources Subcommittee moved the enactment date of the proposal to July 1, 2026, which workers stated was supposed to permit Virginia State Police to implement the change.

As for the psychedelics proposal, a Senate committee unanimously accepted a substitute model of SB 1101 from Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D). As launched, it could would have created a fund to help scientific trials involving veterans and U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA)-designated “breakthrough therapies,” together with psychedelic substances akin to psilocybin and MDMA.

The substitute model of the bill eliminated references to the fund, leaving solely a portion of the proposal that may set up a six-member state advisory council to check and make additional suggestions in regards to the therapies, doubtlessly upfront of a broader compassionate use program. A report from the council could be attributable to lawmakers and the governor by December 1, 2026.