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Virginia Governor Announces Plan To Legalize Marijuana

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Maddison Pace
1:19 am

January 14, 2021

It looks like the Old Dominion will be moving to legalize it really quickly after all, starting just one year after decriminalizing.

The governor of Virginia gave his annual state of the commonwealth address Wednesday, remarking on successes of the past year and challenges and opportunities of the current one. After indicating his desire to soon automatically return an ex-convict’s right to vote, he introduced his ideas on legalization with the following:

It’s also time to acknowledge ways that our criminal justice system treats different people unfairly. Marijuana is a great example. We know that while White people and Black people use marijuana at similar rates, Black people are three and a half times more likely to be charged with a crime for it. And they’re almost four times as likely to be convicted. That happens because that’s how the system was set up generations ago. In fact, one of the early leaders of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency was clear that marijuana laws should be written explicitly to target people of color. And so they were, and they’ve been targeting people for years.

Northam has now released his own proposal for the future of marijuana in the state, just days after delegate Steve E. Heretick introduced his bill.

Governor Northam sees a Virginia—just three years from now—where recreational marijuana is legal and adult Virginians can buy from state-operated stores or from private owned retail stores or even grow it at home, so long as it’s out of sight from the public and can’t be accessed by children.

Past marijuana convictions would be expunged, and a large portion of marijuana revenue would go toward early childhood education for the disadvantaged in the state. When seeking to enter the marketplace with retail stores, those from groups most affected by marijuana criminalization would be eligible for friendly loans and business support.

Not every proposal is likely to be as popular, as Northam suggests an excise tax of 21 percent, over twice that of delegate Heretick’s suggested 9.7 percent. Northam’s version of the bill would also limit home growers to two mature plants and two saplings, whereas Heretick’s bill calls for three mature plants and unlimited saplings.

The details of this bill and others will be debated in the general assembly to arrive at a final legalization bill to be presented to Northam to sign, but whatever the final bill looks like, it really is looking like Virginians will be able to legally blaze one at home soon.