Got questions about Virginia’s laws on weed? We’ve got answers in our FAQs on the state’s cannabis policies.
While the General Assembly made history this month by passing legislation that would allow retailers to launch a legal adult-use cannabis marketplace by the spring of 2025 — four years after Democrats legalized possession in Virginia — the 2024 legislative session saw an entire slate of bills related to marijuana, most of which cleared both chambers with bipartisan support.
A focal point among the total of 16 cannabis proposals introduced this year are two measures with originally rivaling ideas for the creation of a regulated cannabis retail market that were shaped into identical bills after lawmakers settled on a compromise. Both measures cleared the legislature last week and are now headed to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk.
But Republicans remained skeptical of the legislation, especially after Youngkin made known at the onset of this year’s session that he wasn’t interested in cannabis legislation that he knew Democrats would send his way.
While several GOP lawmakers voted in favor of the legislation at different stages, only Sen. Christie New Craig, R-Chesapeake, backed the bill’s final version in the state Senate. In the House, Del. Chris Obenshain, R-Montgomery County, a freshman legislator and former assistant attorney general, was the only member who voted in favor.
Obenshain said in a text message Monday that he supported the legislation because “it would be irresponsible” to allow the current adult market to remain completely unregulated.
“I appreciate the efforts that have been made this year to balance appropriate regulation with public safety concerns,” said Obenshain, who is currently a prosecutor in Montgomery County. “While the bill doesn’t have everything that I would want, that’s the nature of the legislative process. I see this as a positive step forward to regulate the adult market and make necessary investments in behavioral health services, childhood education, and other needs.”
Under SB 448, sponsored by Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, and HB 698, introduced by Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax County, the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority, the agency created to oversee and regulate a marijuana retail market, would accept applications for testing, cultivating, processing, retail and transporter licenses by Sept. 1, with retail to begin on May 1, 2025.
Greg Habeeb, a former Republican member of the House of Delegates from Salem and an attorney and lobbyist who helped draft Rouse’s bill, said in an interview Monday that while he had hoped for more bipartisan support, negotiations would continue behind closed doors in the coming weeks to potentially persuade Youngkin to sign the measure. Youngkin has 30 days to review the legislation once the General Assembly adjourns its regular session on Saturday.
“We will continue to engage the administration, and notwithstanding the governor’s comments on the level of his interest in the legislation, his policy people have been very open talking about this legislation, because they know it’s a priority issue with a lot of members of the General Assembly,” Habeeb said.
“There are always a lot of negotiations that are going on late in the session, and different people have to identify what their priorities are, so we’ll continue to work with members to make sure to the extent that this legislation is a priority, and that they communicate that to the administration.”
As lobbyists continue to work with both the administration and lawmakers, a new poll released Friday by the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College found that 63% of Virginians strongly or somewhat support laws that would help small businesses compete with pharmaceutical companies and existing medical cannabis dispensaries, while only 15% somewhat or strongly oppose.
The survey, which the institute conducted in coordination with the new cannabis studies program at Roanoke College, also found that a similar proportion (60%) strongly or somewhat support laws that would regulate education needs for dispensary workers in Virginia, with only 12% indicating any level of opposition. Responses were largely nonpartisan, with majority support among Democrats (68% and 62% for the two questions), Republicans (56% and 53%) and independents (70% and 55%).
At a press conference at the General Assembly Building in Richmond on Monday, Rouse reiterated that his legislation is “part of a broad coalition” working to get the bill to Youngkin’s desk, and that it seeks to counter a $3 billion illicit market in the commonwealth.
“When you have set up an adult-use cannabis retail market to ensure that safe products are on the street, you won’t hear of those horrible stories of fentanyl-types of overdoses,” Rouse said. “What that bill does is create a safe environment and adult-retail market where Virginians can choose to partake in and while understanding that it is a safe product.”
The final draft of the bill sponsored by Rouse and Krizek would allow the Cannabis Control Authority to limit the number of licenses issued to marijuana retail stores statewide to 350 (with floor space capped at 2,500 square feet), processing facilities to 100, and cultivation facilities to 125. The latter are spread across five tiers, beginning with micro-grow of up to 2,500 square feet, and a grow space of up to 70,000 in the fifth and highest tier.
House and Senate Democrats also agreed on the tax rate for cannabis products, which they set at 11.625% after initially considering 9% in Rouse’s proposal and 12% in Krizek’s bill.
The legislation also eliminates the so-called incubation program, which Krizek proposed in his original bill, and under which six existing medical companies would have been given a six-month head start, allowing them to start selling on July 1 of this year.
Each company would have been required to provide grants of up to $400,000 to six micro-businesses and to help those businesses get established through acceleration programs, which would follow on Jan. 1, 2025. But Rouse feared that it would give the medical companies an opportunity to corner the market early on.
“Right now, that bill has passed both houses and we shall wait and see,” Rouse said Monday. “But I’m proud of the work we have done to get that bill done, and it was a long, hard road.”
However, some skeptics last month shared their concern with lawmakers, warning of what they see as potential dangers of a legal cannabis marketplace in Virginia.
Tom Intorcio, associate director with Virginia Catholic Conference, worried about the impact that a more widespread access to marijuana could have on mental health. “We don’t have enough counselors, we are dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, and this we believe would just compound the mental health crisis that is currently confronting the commonwealth,” Intorcio said before a committee last month.
And Todd Gathje of the Family Foundation of Virginia told the same panel that he doesn’t want his kids to be around “a marijuana pot shop” on every street corner. “I see the direction this bill is heading, but I think we need to consider the long-term effects,” Gathje said.
But Chelsea Higgs Wise, the executive director of Marijuana Justice, a Black-led organization in Virginia that was established in 2019 to continue a movement of legalization centering on repairing the harms of the drug war, praised Rouse’s and Krizek’s effort.
“Finally after three years, the Virginia legislature has agreed on what a regulated and tested market should look like while also including equitable access to licensing opportunities,” Wise said.
Marijuana Justice also backed a few other successful proposals, including one sponsored by Sen. Angelia Williams Graves, D-Norfolk, which mandates that individuals incarcerated for certain marijuana offenses would receive automatic resentencing hearings and their punishments adjusted. SB 696 cleared the Senate on a 20-19 party-line vote last month, followed by a 52-43 bipartisan vote in the House on Monday.
“Resentencing of past crimes must not be minimized as we regulate revenue and profit for marijuana,” Wise said of the legislation.
Another measure with social justice implications is SB 115, sponsored by Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, which provides parental protections for adults who are legally consuming cannabis products without fear of losing custody or visitation. The bill passed in both chambers of the General Assembly with bipartisan support, as did its companion measure in the House, introduced by Del. Rae Cousins, D-Richmond.
“All of these bills address the needed repair from decades of harm that prohibition has caused people in the commonwealth, and we now anxiously await the governor’s action or hopefully inaction,” Wise said. Youngkin can opt to not sign the bill, but as long as he doesn’t veto it, it would become law. “But no matter what happens with the administration, we are proud of the progress and remain hopeful that even if we are back next session, there is a clear consensus for the need to keep pushing for justice.”
Another bill that passed both chambers of the General Assembly with bipartisan support was HB 149, sponsored by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, which amends a provision in the Virginia code that prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee who legally uses a cannabis product, including cannabis oil, for medical reasons.
A similar proposal introduced in the Senate by Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Isle of Wight County, passed in both chambers on a bipartisan vote after being merged with the identical SB 391 by Sen. Stella Pekarsky, D-Fairfax County.
Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Charlottesville, carried legislation removing a restriction on entering first-time drug offender programs for offenders with previous simple marijuana possession convictions. HB 452 passed in both the House and the Senate with unanimous support.
A proposal by Del. Mike Cherry, R-Colonial Heights, increases the maximum expiration date allowable for a cannabis product after registration, absent stability testing, from six months to 12 months. HB 815 passed in both chambers on a bipartisan basis.
Less than a handful of additional proposals related to cannabis were either continued to next year or never taken up by a committee at all.
Likely because legislative efforts to create an adult-use cannabis retail market were already underway, a House Rules subcommittee in early February on a voice vote recommended pushing back House Joint Resolution 63 until the 2025 legislative session. Sponsored by Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, would have directed the Cannabis Control Authority to study the creation of a retail cannabis market in the commonwealth and draft regulations.
A proposal by Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, never made it out of the House Courts of Justice Committee after a request by the patron to strike it from the docket. HB 773 would have modified several criminal penalties related to cannabis, imposed limits on dissemination of criminal history record information related to certain marijuana offenses, and provided a petition process that would allow anyone sentenced to jail for a marijuana offense to seek a resentencing hearing.
The same committee also never took up a measure relating to creating a new criminal offense for cannabis use in traffic. Sponsored by Obenshain, the Republican delegate from Montgomery County, HB 448 sought to establish a presumption of intoxication if a motorist has a blood concentration equal to or greater than 0.004 milligrams of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol per liter of blood. A similar measure sponsored by Del. Wendell Walker, R-Lynchburg, shared the same fate.
The only cannabis-related proposal to be killed outright during the 2024 legislative session was HB 1485, carried by Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, which would have increased the maximum allowable concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, in industrial hemp from 0.6% to 1%. The measure was defeated on a 12-10 party line vote by the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources.