Politics
New Virginia Law Forces Medical Cannabis Patients To Choose Between Their Medicine And Their Housing (Op-Ed)
“Medical cannabis patients in recovery deserve the same opportunity for stable housing as any other patient managing a chronic condition with a lawfully prescribed medication.”
By Jeremy Tillem, GreenhouseRVA
Virginia’s recovery housing system is now forcing legal medical cannabis patients out of stable, certified homes—not because of any new public safety threat, but because a state law passed before cannabis was federally recognized as having accepted medical value refuses to catch up with reality.
As of July 1, new certification mandates under Senate Bill 270, which was passed this year, require state-approved recovery residences to prohibit all cannabis use—including doctor-approved medical cannabis that the U.S. Department of Justice officially rescheduled to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in April.
This creates an immediate, unconstitutional conflict: certified homes for people recovering from substance use disorders must either demand that residents abruptly stop a federally lawful Schedule III medication or risk losing their ability to operate.
As a result, residents are left to choose between their prescribed treatment for chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety or other conditions and a roof over their heads.
This is not a minor regulatory technicality. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, individuals using controlled substances are excluded from disability protections only when engaged in the “illegal use of drugs” under the CSA.
Because the DOJ has rescheduled state-regulated medical cannabis to Schedule III, it is no longer an illegal drug when used pursuant to a valid state medical recommendation. Forcing cessation of this medication to access housing violates the ADA.
The Fair Housing Act likewise prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in housing. Denying stable housing solely because of a doctor-prescribed, non-combustible medication is textbook discrimination.
The inconsistency is glaring. Virginia does not bar residents from taking other Schedule III or Schedule II medications—such as Tylenol with codeine or prescribed opioids—in recovery housing.
Selectively targeting only medical cannabis patients under SB 270 is arbitrary and legally indefensible. Virginia’s own code (§ 40.1-27.4) already protects certified medical cannabis patients from discrimination in hospitals, nursing homes and schools.
But SB 270, which was sponsored by Sen. Schuyler T. VanValkenburg (D), passed by the Senate and House of Delegates and signed into law by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), carves out recovery housing as the sole exception, punishing the very people the system claims to help.
The Virginia Association of Recovery Residences (VARR), in turn, has turned this conflict into a trap. Rather than processing applications under the standards that existed when they were filed, VARR slow-rolled reviews while backing and awaiting passage of SB 270’s prohibition language.
At GreenhouseRVA, we submitted our complete application for state certification in late 2025. Our policies—which addressed medical cannabis only under strict medical supervision, with appropriate safeguards—were reviewed for months without objection.
Then, with no advance notice and no guidance whatsoever on how to come into compliance, we were simply told to withdraw our application to avoid a formal denial, two days before the new law came into effect.
VARR offered no advice, no pathway forward, and no opportunity to cure the issue. On our own initiative, we immediately revised every intake document, program policy and resident agreement to remove all cannabis-related language and resubmitted our application. We are currently awaiting their determination.
The message to operators across Virginia is unmistakable: harm-reduction and multiple-pathways models have no place in the new certified system, regardless of national standards or federal law.
The National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR), whose framework VARR purports to follow, explicitly permits certified homes to adopt medical cannabis policies. These include requirements for valid Virginia medical cards, secure lockbox storage, non-combustible administration, inventory controls and clear consequences for misuse.
NARR recognizes a basic truth that Virginia’s current framework ignores: for many people in recovery, medical cannabis is a legitimate clinical tool that helps manage symptoms that might otherwise trigger relapse to far more dangerous substances.
Instead of supporting evidence-based flexibility, the new certification regime is consolidating power around a single abstinence-only model—the very form of coercive control that recovery housing reform was supposed to prevent.
At GreenhouseRVA, we have operated a structured residence since 2021 serving roughly 25 residents at a time, many referred by local court, probation officers and treatment providers. Residents are successfully using doctor-recommended medical cannabis to manage symptoms instead of—or while reducing reliance on—methadone, Suboxone, Xanax and other pharmaceuticals that carry their own serious risks of dependence, side effects and long-term complications.
Forcing these individuals off cannabis does not promote recovery or abstinence; it removes a tool many are using to step away from more problematic medications and destabilizes the very progress they have made.
Our retention has been strong precisely because we meet people where they are rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all ideology. We understand and appreciate the therapeutic value cannabis can have in a persons recovery process from addiction.
Instead of supporting evidence-based flexibility, the new certification regime is consolidating power around a single abstinence-only model—the very form of coercive control that recovery housing reform was supposed to prevent.
Forcing homes like ours to close down or abandon medical cannabis accommodations does not protect residents; it destabilizes them and increases the risk of homelessness and relapse.
The fix is clear and urgent. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS), which SB 270 charges with setting minimum certification standards, should immediately initiate an emergency regulatory review to align the state’s definition of allowable medications with the federal Schedule III reclassification.
This would restore operator discretion consistent with federal civil rights law without weakening legitimate oversight.
In the 2027 General Assembly session, lawmakers should enact clarifying legislation that explicitly permits NARR-aligned medical cannabis policies in certified recovery residences. Such a measured reform would advance public safety and recovery outcomes, honor federal law and prevent good-faith operators from being punished for following evidence rather than ideology.
Recovery is not monolithic. Some paths require total abstinence from all substances. Others incorporate FDA-recognized medications—now including Schedule III medical cannabis—under medical supervision. Virginia’s policies should reflect that clinical reality rather than punish it.
Medical cannabis patients in recovery deserve the same opportunity for stable housing as any other patient managing a chronic condition with a lawfully prescribed medication.
We are not asking for unregulated or recreational use on property. We are asking for basic consistency with federal law and national best practices. Continuing down the current path will only produce more unnecessary suffering, more evictions from certified housing, and more Virginians forced to choose between their medicine and their home.
Jeremy Tillem is the founder and operator of Greenhouse RVA, Virginia’s first structured, cannabis-friendly recovery residence. As a person in long-term recovery from opiate use disorder, he is a dedicated advocate for evidence-based plant medicine models that use cannabis as a tool to combat the opioid epidemic and the broader illicit drug epidemic.
