Virginia’s governor has vetoed legislation to legalize recreational marijuana sales after lawmakers rejected her proposed amendments to the proposal.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) killed the reform bills on Tuesday, days after signing separate legislation to provide resentencing relief for people with past cannabis convictions.
“I share the General Assembly’s goal of establishing a safe, legal, and well-regulated cannabis retail marketplace in the Commonwealth,” the governor said. “Virginians deserve a system that replaces the illicit cannabis market with one that prioritizes our children’s health and safety, public safety, product integrity, and accountability.”
“As Virginia pursues a legal retail market, it is critical that we incorporate lessons learned by other states and ensure that our regulatory framework is fully prepared to provide strong oversight from day one,” she said. “That includes clear enforcement authority and sufficient resources for compliance, testing, and inspections, and robust tools to crack down on bad actors who continue to profit from the illicit market.”
“I greatly appreciate the patrons’ time crafting this important piece of legislation as well as our continued dialogue and collaboration to strengthen this framework ahead of the next legislative session. I remain committed to working with members of the General Assembly, stakeholders, and law enforcement to get this right.”
Lawmakers passed the cannabis sales bills in March, but the governor then suggested changes to the legalization proposal—including delaying the start date for sales by six months, increasing taxes and instituting new criminal penalties for cannabis consumers. The legislature last month declined to take up the amendments during a one-day reconvened session, however, effectively rejecting them.
Sen. Lashrecse Aird (D), who sponsored the Senate version of the now-vetoed marijuana commerce bill, said on Tuesday that “once again, Virginia’s efforts to establish a safe, regulated and equitable adult-use cannabis marketplace has been halted despite years of work, public input and broad recognition that the status quo is failing Virginians.”
Personal marijuana possession and home cultivation of marijuana has been legal in Virginia since 2021, but then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) twice vetoed bills to provide consumers with a way to legally purchase regulated adult-use cannabis.
“The governor’s decision leaves the commonwealth exactly where we have been since 2021: with an unchecked illicit market, hurting our communities, harming our youth and putting adults at risk,” Aird said of Spanberger’s move. “Virginians deserve better than continued inaction veiled behind excuses about getting it right.”
Del. Paul Krizek (D), sponsor of the House version of the marijuana sales bill, said it was “the product of years of policy development, stakeholder engagement and extensive deliberation through the Joint Commission to Oversee the Transition of the Commonwealth into a Cannabis Retail Market, reflecting a balanced and thoughtful approach shaped by the very people who will be impacted by and responsible for implementing it.”
“Five years ago, Virginia legalized cannabis in recognition that the War on Drugs has caused disproportionate harm to Black families and communities,” he said. “The question now is whether Virginia will continue allowing an unregulated illegal market to thrive, or finally establish a safe, transparent system that protects consumers, keeps products away from children, and keeps our commitment to ending racially discriminatory marijuana policing in Virginia.”
The senator and delegate added in a joint statement:
“The governor’s veto ignores the reality that cannabis is already being sold everyday across Virginia. The only question is whether we as leaders will finally ensure those sales occur within a legal, regulated market or continue turning a blind eye to a booming illicit market while pretending to be outraged by its existence.
The General Assembly provided Virginia with an opportunity to lead on this issue, but instead this veto prolongs uncertainty and provides comfort to those profiting from the illicit market. This veto and its consequences belong to the governor and governor alone.”
Aird and Krizek had urged colleagues to vote against the governor’s amendments last month—even if that meant risking a veto from Spanberger when the legislation returned to her desk, which has now occurred.
Lawmakers will now have to start the push for reform over again with new bills in the 2027 session.
Spanberger, for her part, responded to earlier criticism of her cannabis amendments from the bill sponsors and advocates by saying the suggested changes came after she spoke to the leaders of other states that have already implemented adult-use marijuana markets.
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 would represent an increase from the limit in current law of 1 ounce. The governor, however, wanted the amount increased to only 2 ounces.
- Under the legislature’s plan, legal sales could begin on January 1, 2027, but the governor proposed 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 was largely the same, though it would have increased the excise tax to 8 percent starting on July 1, 2029.
- Under the legislation as approved by lawmakers, revenue would have been 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, wanted 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 have overseen licensing and regulation of the new industry, and would have also taken on oversight of hemp, which is currently under the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
- Local governments could not have opted out of allowing marijuana businesses to operate in their area.
- Delivery services would have been allowed.
- Serving sizes would have been capped at 10 milligrams THC, with no more than 100 mg THC per package.
- The governor proposed 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 wanted 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 have been a class 2 felony punishable by life in prison.
- The governor sought to eliminate support for the Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund.
- Existing medical cannabis operators could have entered the adult-use market if they pay a licensing conversion fee that is set at $10 million.
- Cannabis businesses would have had 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, said the governor action is “a profound disappointment to the many Virginia voters who believed her when she said on the campaign trail that she supported establishing a regulated adult-use cannabis market.”
“It is also a slap in the face to the years of serious work undertaken by lawmakers, policy experts, advocates, public health stakeholders and regulators who spent more than half a decade researching, debating and carefully crafting this legislation,” Pedini told Marijuana Moment. “Rather than build upon that work, the governor dismissed it in favor of out-of-touch proposals to recriminalize cannabis consumers that lawmakers rightly rejected.”
“Now, instead of finally taking marijuana out of smoke shops and placing it behind an age-verified counter, Virginia is once again being forced to tolerate another yet year of dangerous illicit market activity in every corner of the Commonwealth. Just as under Glenn Youngkin, unlicensed and predatory operators will continue to profit while public health and safety are left unprotected.”
Chelsea Higgs Wise, executive director of Marijuana Justice, noted that “for five years, Virginia has been stuck in a limbo where adults can legally possess, share and grow cannabis, but there is still no regulated way to purchase it.”
“By rejecting the retail bill, the governor has chosen to extend that chaos rather than move us toward a transparent, accountable retail system that centers public health, public safety and justice,” she said.
“We are deeply concerned that instead of focusing on repair and relief, the administration has signaled a willingness to introduce new penalties and harsher enforcement in future proposals,” Wise said. “Adding more punishment to an already unjust landscape does not make our families, children or communities safer. It only widens the gap between those who are penalized and those who profit. These choices also carry a real price tag: every new offense and prosecution drives up system costs, drains taxpayer dollars and pulls law enforcement away from real public safety needs.”
A coalition of cannabis reform organizations sent the governor a letter this month urging her not to veto the sales legalization legislation even though her amendments were rejected.
“Together, these bills address the real issues surrounding cannabis in the Commonwealth today: an already-existing, unregulated marijuana market operating openly across the state while consumers, communities, and law enforcement are left without the protections of a legal framework,” the groups wrote.
“Let’s be clear: these bills do not create a marijuana market in Virginia. That market already exists,” the letter said. “What these bills do is replace today’s predatory and unaccountable illicit operators with a regulated marketplace, enforceable rules, oversight, product safeguards, age verification, and the strict consumer safety standards already in use for Virginia medical cannabis.”
The letter was signed by Virginia NORML, Marijuana Justice, Virginia Cannabis Association, Marijuana Policy Project and other groups.
Meanwhile, the governor signed several other reform bills last month—including measures to protect the parental rights of marijuana consumers and allow patients to access medical cannabis in hospitals.
