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A pair of Democrats in Virginia’s Senate and House of Delegates have reintroduced legislation that would regulate the commonwealth’s marijuana market and allow legal commercial cannabis sales to begin.
Use, possession, and limited cultivation in the state have been legal since mid-2021.
Last year state lawmakers passed a marijuana sales legalization bill that reflected a compromise between Del. Paul Krizek (D) and Sen. Aaron Rouse (D), but Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed the legislation the following month.
The two lawmakers last month signaled that they’d begin the new 30-day 2025 legislative session, which begins later this month, by starting from where they left off on the cannabis proposal. The new companion bills, SB 970 and HB 2485, landed Wednesday on the state legislature’s website.
Adults would be able to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana from regulated retailers under the new, 82-page legislation, with sales set to commence no earlier than May 1, 2026. Regulators at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority could begin issuing business licenses in September of this year.
Purchases of adult-use marijuana would be taxed at up to 11.625 percent. Municipal governments could ban marijuana establishments locally, but only with the support of voters.
As Krizek told Marijuana Moment last month, the new versions of the bill reflect the same proposal as the legislature passed last year, aside from technical adjustments like revised dates.
“We’re gonna do the same retail cannabis bill,” he said at the time, adding that further amendments could of course happen over the course of the short session.
Krizek acknowledged, however, the likelihood that Youngkin would again veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
“The governor’s made it very clear that he will veto it, but nonetheless, it’s important,” he said of the coming effort. “It’s important we have a marketplace with safe, tested and taxed products.”
Jason Blanchette, president of the Virginia Cannabis Association, said of the possibility of another Youngkin veto: “I don’t think he’s going to have a change of heart.”
Blanchette, who was involved in last year’s legal sales effort and supports the new legislation, still feels it’s important that lawmakers take up the matter this year.
“We’ve got one more year of Youngkin, and then if we can get it out, get it on his desk, that’ll be two times the Democrats have gotten the exact same bill through,” he told Marijuana Moment, referring to the fact that the term-limited governor’s time in office ends early next year. “The feeling is that’ll set some very strong precedent for the next governor.”
Here’s what Virginia’s reintroduced marijuana sales legislation, SB 970 and HB 2485, would do:
Retail sales could begin as of May 1, 2026.
Adults would be able to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana in a single transaction, or up to an equivalent amount of other cannabis products as determined by regulators.
A tax of up to 11.625 percent would apply to the retail sale of any cannabis product. That would include a state retail and use tax of 1.125 percent on top of a new marijuana-specific tax of 8 percent. Local governments could levy an additional 2.5 percent.
The Virginia Cannabis Control Authority would oversee licensing and regulation of the new industry. Its board of directors would have the authority to control possession, sale, transportation, distribution, delivery and testing of marijuana.
Local governments could ban marijuana establishments, but only if voters approve an opt-out referendum.
Locations of retail outlets could not be within 1,000 feet of another marijuana retailer.
Cultivators would be regulated by space devoted to marijuana cultivation, known as canopy size. Both indoor and outdoor marijuana cultivation would be allowed, though only growers in lower tiers—with lower limits on canopy size—could grow plants outside. Larger growers would need to cultivate plants indoors. Secure greenhouses would qualify as indoor cultivation.
Only direct, face-to-face transactions would be permitted. The legislation would prohibit the use of other avenues, such as vending machines, drive-through windows, internet-based sales platforms and delivery services.
Existing medical marijuana providers that enter the adult-use market could apply to open up to five additional retail establishments, which would need to be colocated at their existing licensed facilities.
Serving sizes would be capped at 10 milligrams THC, with no more than 100 mg THC per package.
No person could be granted or hold an interest in more than five total licenses, not including transporter licenses.
People with convictions for felonies or crimes involving moral turpitude within the past seven years would be ineligible to apply for licensing, as would employees of police or sheriff’s departments if they’re responsible for enforcement of the penal, traffic or motor vehicle laws of the commonwealth.
An equity-focused microbusiness program would grant licenses to entities at least two-thirds owned and directly controlled by eligible applicants, which include people with past cannabis misdemeanors, family members of people with past convictions, military veterans, individuals who’ve lived at least three of the past five years in a “historically economically disadvantaged community,” people who’ve attended schools in those areas and individuals who received a federal Pell grant or attended a college or university where at least 30 percent of students are eligible for Pell grants.
A “historically economically disadvantaged community” is defined as an area that has recorded marijuana possession offenses at or above 150 percent of the statewide average between 2009 and 2019.
Tax revenue from the program would first cover the costs of administering and enforcing the state’s cannabis system. After that, 60 percent of remaining funds would go toward supporting the state’s Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund, 25 percent would fund substance use disorder treatment and prevention, 10 percent would go to pre-K programs for at-risk children and 5 percent would fund a public health and awareness campaign.
Adults could also share up to 2.5 ounces with other adults without financial remuneration, though gray-market “gifting” of marijuana as part of another transaction would be punishable as a Class 2 misdemeanor and a Class 1 misdemeanor on second and subsequent offenses.
A number of other new criminal penalties would be created. Knowingly selling or giving marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia to someone under 21, for example, would be a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a maximum $2,500 fine, as would knowingly selling cannabis to someone reasonably believed to be intoxicated. It would also be a Class 1 misdemeanor to advertise the sale of marijuana paraphernalia to people under 21.
Knowingly obtaining marijuana on behalf of someone under 21 would be a Class 1 misdemeanor.
People under 21 who possess or use marijuana, or attempt to obtain it, would be subject to a civil penalty of no more than $25 and ordered to enter a substance use disorder treatment and/or education program.
Illegal cultivation or manufacture of marijuana, not including legal homegrow, would be a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $2,500 fine.
People could process homegrown marijuana into products such as edibles, but butane extraction or the use of other volatile solvents would be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.
Krizek, the House sponsor, said last month that it’s possible some Republican lawmakers might challenge Youngkin’s opposition to legal cannabis sales given that the governor’s term ends early next year. Advocates hope the governor’s replacement will be more favorable to regulated sales, noting that a handful of Republican leaders in some other states have been more open to marijuana reform.
Use, possession and limited cultivation of cannabis by adults is already legal in Virginia, the result of a Democrat-led proposal approved by lawmakers in 2021. But Republicans, after winning control of the House and governor’s office later that year, subsequently blocked the required reenactment of a regulatory framework for retail sales. Since then, illicit stores have sprung up to meet consumer demand.
Rouse, the sponsor of the legal sales proposal in the Senate, has responded to complaints by law enforcement about marijuana-related crime by saying that legalization would reduce violence and illegal sales.
“Our young people are killing each other over something where we could attempt to mitigate those interactions by regulating marijuana,” he said in June.
The organization Marijuana Justice, which advocates for equity in cannabis legalization, also supports the renewed proposal.
“We are supporting the regulation proposals,” Executive Director Chelsea Higgs Wise told Marijuana Moment in an email, “as they match the compromise bills from last year minus some technical changes.”
JM Pedini, development director for the advocacy group NORML and executive director for Virginia NORML, said in an email that Virginians “have grown weary of the politicization of cannabis regulation.”
“Unfortunately, the ultimate roadblock remains Governor Youngkin’s misguided opposition to taking marijuana off the street corner and placing it behind and age-verified counter,” they said.
Pedini said in an interview earlier this week about the state’s new legislative session that other, complementary bills may be forthcoming to help address the state’s lack of regulation.
“I can tell you that we will see additional legislation introduced,” Pedini said, declining to comment further on the record.
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Last year, Youngkin greeted even more minor marijuana reforms coldly. He vetoed a separate proposal, for example, that would have prevented the state from considering marijuana use alone as evidence of child abuse or neglect despite the measure winning unanimous or near-unanimous approval in votes on the Senate floor.
Following that action, Del. Rae Cousins (D), the bill’s sponsor, accused the governor of “turning his back on the needs of our children and neglecting their well-being by encouraging the courts to move forward with unnecessary family separations.”
Supporters of last year’s sales bill, including Rouse and Krizek, repeatedly emphasized that the legislation would not create a cannabis market in Virginia but instead regulate the state’s existing illicit market, which some estimates valued at nearly $3 billion.
Separately, last April, Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Shelton said her agency had received a sufficient number of reports of minors getting sick from cannabis products that the commonwealth would create a “special surveillance system” to track the issue.
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.
“}]] A pair of Democrats in Virginia’s Senate and House of Delegates have reintroduced legislation that would regulate the commonwealth’s marijuana market and allow legal commercial cannabis sales to begin. Use, possession, and limited cultivation in the state have been legal since mid-2021. Last year state lawmakers passed a marijuana sales legalization bill that reflected a Read More
