Virginia Marijuana Bill Sponsors Push Back Against Governor’s Proposed Changes

Virginia lawmakers who sponsored bills to legalize recreational marijuana sales are pushing back forcefully against the governor’s suggested changes to their legislation.

On Monday, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) proposed amendments to the cannabis commerce legalization measure—including delaying the start date for sales by six months, increasing taxes and instituting new criminal penalties for cannabis consumers.

Sen. Lashrecse Aird (D) said the governor’s substitute of her legislation “represents a significant departure from the framework passed by the General Assembly, raising serious concerns about fairness, access and public safety.”

“By making the legal market harder to access, this proposal allows the illicit market to continue to thrive in every corner store in our Commonwealth. That undermines the core goals of legalization and increases the likelihood of untested products, inconsistent potency, and lacks consumer protections,” she said. “It also weakens safeguards designed to prevent youth access and ensure accountability ultimately posing a risk to public health and safety.”

Del. Paul Krizek (D), who sponsored the cannabis bill in the House of Delegates, said Spanberger’s proposal “creates a less accessible legal marketplace.”

“These changes reduce the number of available licenses, delay the launch of retail sales and impose high barriers to entry, resulting in revenue losses, delayed economic opportunity for market participants and the elimination of investment to small businesses,” he said. “These barriers do not eliminate demand, it simply redirects it back to the illicit market.”

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.

Aird said that the governor’s amendment “substantially introduces harsh escalating criminal penalties that risk repeating the very harm legalization was meant to correct, particularly in communities that have historically been harmed by prohibition, while simultaneously encouraging intoxicating hemp products to continue to be sold without any safeguards.”

Krizek said “Virginians have not been waiting since 2021 for a legal retail marketplace that will expand criminal penalties, introduce new felony tiers for cannabis-related offenses and expose individuals to lifelong prison sentences while Virginia is actively correcting these wrongs from the past.”

Here are the other key details of the cannabis bills— SB 542 and HB 642—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.

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

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