Virginia Governor Wants Amendments To Marijuana Sales Legalization Bill, Including Delayed Market Launch

Virginia’s governor is requesting that legislators make amendments to a bill to legalize recreational marijuana sales that they sent to her desk last month.

On Monday, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) returned the measure with suggested changes—including pushing back the start date for sales by six months, increasing taxes and instituting new criminal penalties for cannabis consumers.

The delayed launch of the legal market from January 1, 2027 to July 1, 2027 will “allow for additional time to implement a legal market safely and curb the illicit market,” a press release from the governor’s office says.

“Five years ago, the Commonwealth took the first steps to legalize marijuana—and for five years, the work sat unfinished,” Spanberger said. “We are working to set up a marketplace that is controlled, regulated, and responsible—because legal markets only succeed when there are clear guardrails and enforcement to back it up.”

“To keep our next generation safe, we must also ensure real consequences for vape shops that have spent years targeting Virginia’s kids,” she said. “We need to rein in these shady businesses and make sure a legal marijuana market does not make the problem worse.”

Under current law, adults over 21 can legally possess up to 1 ounce of cannabis. The bill as approved by lawmakers would have increased that to 2.5 ounces, but Spanberger wants lawmakers to change that to 2 ounces.

She is also seeking to replace the current $25 penalty in existing law for public marijuana use with a new class 4 criminal misdemeanor.

The governor’s proposal will “strengthen the enforcement provisions” in concert with a related bill lawmakers sent her on the issue “to put a greater focus on consumer and product safety,” her office’s press release said.

Spanberger is additionally proposing that the cannabis excise tax in the bill increase from 6 percent to 8 percent after July 1, 2029, and that regulators be allowed to license only up to 200 retail marijuana dispensaries prior to 2029 instead of the 350 included in the initial wave in the bill as passed by lawmakers.

The legislature is set to reconvene to address the governor’s proposal on April 22.

Meanwhile, Spanberger signed several other cannabis bills on Monday—including measures to protect the parental rights of consumers and allow patients to access medical marijuana in hospitals. She also proposed amendments to legislation to provide resentencing relief for people with past convictions and to change rules for marijuana delivery services.

Personal marijuana possession and home cultivation of marijuana has been legal in Virginia since 2021, but former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) twice vetoed bills to provide consumers with a way to legally purchase regulated adult-use cannabis.

The marijuana sales bills that Spanberger wants amendments to are SB 542 from Sen. Lashrecse Aird (D) and HB 642 from Del. Paul Krizek (D).

Here are the other key details of the cannabis bills as approved by lawmakers and with the governor’s suggested amendments:

• Lawmakers voted to allow adults to 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. That represents an increase from the limit in current law of 1 ounce. The governor, however, wants the amount increased to only 2 ounces.
• Under the legislature’s plan, legal sales could begin on January 1, 2027, but the governor is proposing to push that back to July 1, 2027.
• Lawmakers voted to impose an excise tax of 6 percent on cannabis sales as well as a 5.3 percent retail sales and use tax, while allowing municipalities to set an additional local tax of up to 3.5 percent. The governor’s plan is largely the same, though it would increase the excise tax to 8 percent starting on July 1, 2029.
• Under the legislation as approved by lawmakers, revenue would be distributed to the Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund (30 percent), early childhood education (40 percent), the Department of Behavioral & Developmental Health Services (25 percent) and public health initiatives (5 percent). The governor, however, wants to put all revenue into the general fund while earmarking it “for purposes such as early childhood education, behavioral health, public health awareness, prevention, treatment, and recovery services, workforce development, reentry, indigent criminal defense, and targeted reinvestment in historically disadvantaged communities.”
• The Virginia Cannabis Control Authority would oversee licensing and regulation of the new industry, and would also take on oversight of hemp, which is currently under the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
• Local governments could not opt out of allowing marijuana businesses to operate in their area.
• Delivery services would be allowed.
• Serving sizes would be capped at 10 milligrams THC, with no more than 100 mg THC per package.
• The governor is proposing to make public marijuana use a class 4 criminal misdemeanor instead of civil violation punishable by a $25 fine as under current law. She also wants to make possessing cannabis by people under the age of 21 a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable with a mandatory minimum fine of $500 or 50 hours of community service, as well as the suspension of drivers licenses for at least six months. Illegally selling or distributing 50 pounds or more of marijuana would be a class 2 felony punishable by life in prison.
• The governor is seeking to eliminate support for the Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund.
• Existing medical cannabis operators could enter the adult-use market if they pay a licensing conversion fee that is set at $10 million.
• Cannabis businesses would have to establish labor peace agreements with workers.
• As passed by lawmakers, the bill would have directed a legislative commission to study adding on-site consumption licenses and microbusiness cannabis event permits that would allow licensees to conduct sales at venues like farmers markets or pop-up locations, but the governor is proposing to remove that language.

JM Pedini, development director for the advocacy group NORML and executive director for Virginia NORML, criticized the governor’s move to delay the launch of legal sales.

“After years of deliberation, work groups, studies and commission reports, the legislature delivered a pragmatic bipartisan path to retail adult-use cannabis sales,” Pedini said. “Further delaying legal retail sales is just another page from the prohibitionist playbook, the kind of policy failure Virginians saw under Glenn Youngkin, not what they expect from Abigail Spanberger. Let’s be clear about what July 1, 2027 means for Virginia: another entire year of driving Virginians to the illicit market, endangering communities, undermining public safety and not keeping marijuana out of the hands of youth.”

Other advocates, however, support moving the sales start date back in order to give new businesses more of a chance to compete with existing medical cannabis operators.

“Virginia is now closer than ever to implementing true marijuana reform. It’s encouraging to see Gov. Spanberger listen to the people about the start date and moving it back to July 1, 2027,” Chelsea Higgs Wise, executive director of Marijuana Justice. “I am continuing to review the language with hopes that we have not overcorrected with criminal penalties, we protect equal and meaningful opportunities for small business while also maintaining the repair required for moving our commonwealth forward.”

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

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