With a vote on Tuesday by Virginia’s Home of Delegates, each chambers of the legislature have now handed payments that may legalize and regulate leisure marijuana gross sales within the commonwealth.
Home members voted 53–46 to approve HB 2485, from Del. Paul Krizek (D), which might permit adults 21 and older to buy as much as 2.5 ounces of marijuana from regulated, state-licensed retailers. The vote comes after the Senate final week authorised companion laws, SB 970, from Sen. Aaron Rouse (D).
Every invoice now proceeds to the other chamber for consideration there.
Even when lawmakers give ultimate approval to the laws, nonetheless, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has indicated he plans to veto it, as he did final 12 months with practically similar laws.
Use, possession and restricted cultivation of hashish by adults are already authorized in Virginia, the results of a Democrat-led proposal authorised by lawmakers in 2021. However Republicans, after successful management of the Home and governor’s workplace later that 12 months, 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 practically $3 billion.
“I need my associates throughout the aisle to know that it’s time for the state to place this $3 billion unlawful hashish market to sleep,” Krizek mentioned earlier than a procedural vote on his invoice on Monday. “We’d like competitors from a protected, examined and taxed product.”
Advocates echoed that time following the Home vote on Tuesday.
“The Home and Senate transferring in sync show the vital want for this transfer in the direction of public heath and security,” Julie O’Brien, coverage coordinator for Marijuana Justice, mentioned in an announcement to MEDCAN24. “We’re happy to be a part of the method and in addition look ahead to taking part within the reinstated Hashish Fee that can meet from this summer time till 2026 session.”
Regardless of the probability of Youngkin’s veto, many really feel it’s important that supporters of regulated gross sales proceed to push the difficulty.
Jason Blanchette, president of the Virginia Hashish Affiliation, advised MEDCAN24 final month, for instance, that whereas he expects Youngkin to veto any authorized gross sales invoice that reaches his desk this session, it’s however essential that lawmakers are ready to maneuver ahead beneath the subsequent governor. Youngkin’s time period ends this 12 months, and voters will select his substitute in November.
“We’ve acquired yet another 12 months 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 via,” Blanchette mentioned. “The sensation is that’ll set some very robust precedent for the subsequent governor.”
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 Could 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 % would apply to the retail sale of any hashish product. That would come with a state retail and use tax of 1.125 % on high of a brand new marijuana-specific tax of 8 %. Native governments may levy a further 2.5 %.
- The Virginia Hashish Management Authority would oversee licensing and regulation of the brand new business. Its board of administrators would have the authority to manage possession, sale, transportation, distribution, supply and testing of marijuana.
- Native governments may ban marijuana institutions, however provided that voters approve an opt-out referendum.
- Areas of shops couldn’t be inside 1,000 ft of one other marijuana retailer.
- Cultivators can be regulated by area dedicated to marijuana cultivation, generally known as cover dimension. Each indoor and outside marijuana cultivation can be allowed, although solely growers in decrease tiers—with decrease limits on cover dimension—may develop vegetation outdoors. Bigger growers would want to domesticate vegetation indoors. Safe greenhouses would qualify as indoor cultivation.
- Solely direct, face-to-face transactions can be permitted. The laws would prohibit using different avenues, comparable 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 further retail institutions, which might should be colocated at their present licensed amenities.
- Serving sizes can 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.
- Individuals with convictions for felonies or crimes involving ethical turpitude inside the previous seven years can be ineligible to use for licensing, as would staff of police or sheriff’s departments in the event that they’re chargeable for enforcement of the penal, visitors or motorcar legal guidelines of the commonwealth.
- An equity-focused microbusiness program would grant licenses to entities at the least two-thirds owned and straight managed by eligible candidates, which embody individuals with previous hashish misdemeanors, relations of individuals with previous convictions, navy veterans, people who’ve lived at the 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 least 30 % 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 % of the statewide common between 2009 and 2019.
- Tax income from this system would first cowl the prices of administering and implementing the state’s hashish system. After that, 60 % of remaining funds would go towards supporting the state’s Hashish Fairness Reinvestment Fund, 25 % would fund substance use dysfunction remedy and prevention, 10 % would go to pre-Okay packages for at-risk youngsters and 5 % 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 can be punishable as a Class 2 misdemeanor and a Class 1 misdemeanor on second and subsequent offenses.
- Quite a few different new legal penalties can be created. Knowingly promoting or giving marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia to somebody beneath 21, for instance, can be a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by as much as a 12 months in jail and a most $2,500 positive, as would knowingly promoting hashish to somebody moderately believed to be intoxicated. It will even be a Class 1 misdemeanor to promote the sale of marijuana paraphernalia to individuals beneath 21.
- Knowingly acquiring marijuana on behalf of somebody beneath 21 can be a Class 1 misdemeanor.
- Individuals beneath 21 who possess or use marijuana, or try and get hold of it, can be topic to a civil penalty of not more than $25 and ordered to enter a substance use dysfunction remedy and/or training program.
- Unlawful cultivation or manufacture of marijuana, not together with authorized homegrow, can be a Class 6 felony, punishable by as much as 5 years imprisonment and a $2,500 positive.
- Individuals may course of homegrown marijuana into merchandise comparable to edibles, however butane extraction or using different unstable solvents can be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.
Earlier this week, the complete Senate unanimously handed a separate invoice that may 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 remedies involving U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA)-designated “breakthrough therapies,” together with substances comparable to psilocybin and MDMA.
As launched by Hashmi final month, the invoice would have additionally created a fund to help medical trials into breakthrough remedy remedies for veterans, however a substitute adopted in committee final week eliminated references to that fund, leaving solely the portion of the proposal that may create the advisory council.
“That specific substitute actually pares the invoice all the way down to create inside the Division of Well being the Breakthrough Therapies for Veteran Suicide Prevention Advisory Council,” Hashmi mentioned earlier than the ground vote on Monday. “One factor that we all know is that veteran suicide stays a vital disaster level, with charges considerably larger amongst veterans than the civilian inhabitants. Given the truth that we’ve got such a excessive veteran neighborhood right here in Virginia, this laws is very crucial.”
“Veterans, as we all know, are disproportionately affected by situations comparable to PTSD, treatment-resistant despair, main depressive dysfunction and traumatic mind harm,” the lawmaker added. “What we’ve got seen is compelling analysis coming from quite a lot of analysis establishments, comparable to Johns Hopkins, that factors to the truth that remedy via psilocybin has been efficient in addressing lots of these points.”
The measure is an up to date model of an identical proposal final 12 months, SB 229, that cleared the Senate however didn’t make it out of the Home.
Final week, in the meantime, lawmakers superior proposals that may 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 meant to permit Virginia State Police to implement the change.
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