A House of Delegates General Laws subcommittee voted five to three on Monday to recommend continuing a key marijuana sales legalization bill until the 2023 session, effectively dooming the bill for now. Senate Bill 391 would create the regulatory structure for a legal marijuana industry in Virginia, including cultivation, manufacture, and sale. If the General Laws Committee follows the recommendation from the subcommittee, Virginia’s legal-to-own but not legal-to-buy recreational cannabis structure will remain in place for now.
Bill sponsor Senator Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) told the delegates, “The action of this subcommittee, as we discussed, will establish a Virginia cannabis brand. The question is whether the brand will be a regulated, confined marketplace for adults, or for an import crime subsidization program proliferating in schoolyards and gas stations.”
Delegate Jeff Campbell (R-Smyth) said, “I spent most of the weekend poring through this bill and trying to come to the determination whether now is the right time for this policy in Virginia. Question about whether or not this is the correct vehicle with which to undertake this policy, which there’s still a lot of unknown, obviously, in this. I think this is a bigger issue than we can correct in two weeks’ time, quite frankly, even if we send it on, move it forward, and I think it’s something that the imperative is that we continue to study this over the year, try to get this right.”
Marijuana legalization bills as passed in 2021 were originally written to delay legalization until 2024, giving Virginia agencies time to develop complex regulatory systems around manufacture and sales. The regulations were also meant to address unequal burdens caused by historical marijuana law enforcement by ensuring that those with marijuana convictions have access to business licenses. That regulatory structure earned opposition from Republicans who wanted a more free-market approach to legalization.
After the General Assembly passed those bills, then-Governor Ralph Northam amended the legislation to legalize possession on July 1, 2021. Still, the rest of the legislation doesn’t go into effect until 2024, leaving it illegal to buy marijuana, transport it across state lines, or trade it for other goods.
Cannabis advocacy organization NORML reports that in Virginia, adults 21 and up can possess one ounce in public, cultivate up to four plants per household, share up to one ounce in private among adults, and buy marijuana through the medical cannabis program.
Many Republicans remained opposed to the proposed regulatory structure created under Democratic leadership. After the November elections, now-Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) warned that there would be changes to the structure.
In the current session, Delegate Michael Webert (R-Marshall) introduced HB 950 to create the cannabis regulatory structure, but his bill died without receiving a hearing.
“In a stunning failure of leadership on cannabis policy, SB391 is carried over on a party line vote in House General Laws Subcommittee 5 to 2023, effectively halting any progress on retail access,” Virginia NORML Executive Director JM Pedini tweeted after the vote.
Pedini said that as a result, some marijuana-related crimes will default back to felonies.
“Improperly tagging personally cultivated plants or failing to shield them from view from a public way would be a Class 6 felony. Additionally, penalties for possession with intent to distribute that would have been drastically reduced now will not,” Pedini told The Virginia Star.
The Virginia House Democrats said in a press release, “This morning, House Republicans in a General Laws subcommittee chose to take no action on critical legislation that would have put a stop to the illicit marijuana market and established the legal marketplace. They were handed a plan and failed to act on what Speaker Gilbert referred to as a ‘live grenade…rolling around.'”
“Let’s be clear,” Gilbert said in a tweet. “Virginia Democrats made a great big mess when they legalized marijuana without putting any regulatory or retail structure in place. We are left having to clean up their mess and we will not make it worse by rushing to fix it.”
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Adam Ebbin” by Friends of Guest House. Photo “Jeff Campbell” by Jeff Campbell for West Virginia. Background Photo “Marijuana Dispensary ” by Rick Obst. CC BY 2.0.
