Virginia’s legislative session for 2025 is already underway. State officials are recommending to lawmakers that they seal all legal data pertaining marijuana offenses in order to make it easier for people who want the drug. They will also revise their record-sealing policy regarding round cannabis and paraphernalia crimes.
Last week, the Virginia State Crime Fee approved various suggestions related to sealing reports, including round cannabis.
“The laws before you ensure that all possession of marijuana offences are sealed, regardless of whether they’re a convicted or not, without the entry of an order from a courtroom,” said Colin Drabert, Deputy Director of the fee, at a meeting last week.
While it is ultimately up to the legislature to decide whether or not they will take the body’s recommendations, the lawmakers who are a part of the commission have filed bills reflecting the proposed changes: SB 1466The Senate was introduced by Scott Surovell on Friday, while Rep. Charniele Herring filed a similar bill. HB 2723 The home of Delegates
Under the new law, charges and convictions for any “legal or civil offense” relating to marijuana possession can be “sealed without entry of a court order.”
This would not apply to certain Department of Motor Vehicles information that is subject to federal record retention requirements. The requirement would apply to business screening companies that check people’s driving records or legal histories.
The Crime Fee members changed the overall record-sealing package agreement in the final week. meeting However, these did not affect Cannabis laws
Chelsea Higgs Sensible is the executive director of the Marijuana Justice advocacy group. She said that her group, along with other allies, would be working to ensure the new law’s passage.
She stated that “Marijuana Justice” along with our Cannajustice Coalition (which includes Justice Ahead Virginia and RISE for Youth) was committed to implementing the report sealing process in 2025 to repair the damage of past marijuana offenses. Even after the changes, we still support the proposals of Delegate Herring, and Senator Surovell.
Last March, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, vetoed the bill that would have offered a resentencing discount for people convicted of past cannabis offenses. It was a law that would have required resentencing in many marijuana-related criminal cases by 2024. People who had their sentences for other crimes increased because of a previous marijuana conviction had received hearings as early as April 1.
In his veto statement at the time, Governor wrote: “This bill grants eligibility to an enormous variety of violent felons that have already received a complete and truthful hearing,” as well as: “Now is not the time to allow a reckless resentencing process that undermines public safety.”
Virginia has authorized the use, possession and limited cultivation of marijuana for adults due to a regulation that was passed in 2021.
Business sales remain prohibited however after Republicans blocked the required reenactment for a regulatory frame work. Democrats in the House and Senate launched a bill that legalizes and regulates retail sales.
Youngkin vetoed a measure to legalize business in February.
Del. Paul Krizek, (D), and Sen. Aaron Rouse, (D), each sponsored a separate authorized gross sales payment last year. However this year they introduced a mixed proposal that reflects the compromises made in session. Krizek said to MEDCAN24 in late last year that it was necessary to continue the change despite the governor’s objection.
He said that the governor has made it clear that he will veto any such effort. However, he still believes it is necessary. It is important to have a safe, regulated and taxed market.
On Friday the Senate Committee on Rehabilitation and Social Companies superior Rouse’s invoice on an 8–7 vote.
Rouse said, “I am proud to have presented a framework for adult use cannabis via a structured licensing application course of action,” before Friday’s vote in the committee. “This bill puts public security first by regulating the market to keep adult-use products away from children. We have recently seen a rapid increase in the number of illegal and unregulated marijuana stores. This has put Virginians in danger as unlicensed drug sellers promote billions of {dollars} of untested and untaxed merchandise, steadily to kids.”
He said: “A well-regulated market for retail is essential for public safety and can ensure that products are tested for security, accurately labeled, sold in a controlled setting, and kept away from children.”
Krizek said that, in the interim, more Republicans might be willing to take on Youngkin this year if he can’t run for reelection. “It is not something that Republican leaders from other states haven’t done already,” he said of the regulation of cannabis sales. In my view, it’s not a political issue.
The fact that it was the last session of the year meant he also left open the possibility that the proposal for authorized gross sales could become “a bargaining chip” in a bigger budgetary problem.
“That is the choice we have to make the most effective bill possible in order to eliminate this proliferation of retail activity that’s currently on the marketplace,” Krizek explained.
Following the governor’s veto of the legislature-passed invoice final session, the Democratic Legislative Marketing campaign Committee (DLCC), which focuses on electing Democrats to state legislatures, slammed Youngkin for his marijuana reform opposition, saying that he “continues to carry Virginia again and block the progress made by Democrats accountable for the legislature.”
Rouse has responded to the complaints of law enforcement by stating that legalization could help reduce violence associated with illegal sales of marijuana.
Youngkin was a candidate that many hoped would be elected by the first time in 2021.
“With Governor-elect Youngkin beforehand stating that he would uphold the need of the folks, and give attention to making a ‘rip-roaring economic system,’ we’re totally assured that he and the folks of Virginia will proceed to make progress,” Jim Cacioppo, the CEO, chairman and founding father of multistate cannabis firm Jushi Holdings, stated in a press release on the time.
Trent Woloveck – Jushi’s chief technical director – described Youngkin in an e-mail to MEDCAN24, after the veto. He called him “a sanctimonious traditional warrior.”
Last year, the governor also reacted coldly to less controversial marijuana reforms. In March, for example, he vetoed another proposal that would have prevented the state using marijuana as proof of child abuse and neglect regardless of whether the measure received unanimous or almost-unanimous approval on the Senate’s floor.
Del. Rae Cousins (D), the invoice’s sponsor, accused the governor of “turning his again on the wants of our kids and neglecting their well-being by encouraging the courts to maneuver ahead with pointless household separations.”
Individually within the state, Virginia Well being Commissioner Karen Shelton stated final April that her company had obtained a enough variety of reviews of minors getting sick from cannabis merchandise that the commonwealth would create a “particular surveillance system” to trace the difficulty.
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