Gov. Abigail Spanberger explained her cannabis veto: she didn’t want to rush like other states. The problem is that the states that rushed are doing fine, and her veto just froze a $50 million expansion and hundreds of jobs.

A day after vetoing the bill that would have launched Virginia’s adult-use cannabis market, Gov. Abigail Spanberger explained herself. Speaking at an unrelated event Wednesday, she said she still supports a retail market but wants “a durable one,” and that opening sales by January 2027 was simply too fast.

“The notion that, between July and January, we would be able to build out all of the rules of the road for a legal recreational marijuana market and have doors open to sales in January, is a rushed time frame.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger

She also said the 350-store cap in the bill, with up to three stores per locality, was “far more” than she was comfortable with, and that her team had talked with other governors to learn from “the mistakes of other states that have either rushed, or even thinking that they got it right on a methodical path.” (We covered the veto itself and the new criminal penalties that killed it for her own party, here.)

Here’s the catch. She never named a single state or a single mistake.

The states that “rushed” are fine

The trouble with the too-fast argument is that the record points the other way. Ohio launched adult-use sales in August 2024, less than a year after voters legalized it in November 2023. Maryland opened in July 2023, eight months after its own ballot measure. Neither rollout drew much industry criticism.

The state most operators point to as a cautionary tale is New York, which moved slowly. Its first store didn’t open until December 2022, nearly two years after legalization, and the botched rollout was so bad that even Gov. Kathy Hochul called it exactly that. In other words, the disaster Spanberger says she wants to avoid is the one caused by going slow, which is the thing her veto just guaranteed.

$50 million and hundreds of jobs, on pause

While the governor talks timelines, the veto already has a price tag. Jushi Holdings, the Florida-based operator that runs Beyond Hello dispensaries in Virginia, said a $50 million plan to expand its existing business and hire “hundreds” of new workers is now frozen.

“All that is on pause.”

A Jushi Holdings executive, to the Washington Business Journal

Trent Woloveck, Jushi’s chief strategy director, has been blunt about the logic gap. Pushing the program back six months while invoking public health, he told local outlets, amounts to the governor “talking out of both sides of her mouth,” because the unregulated market she says she’s worried about keeps running in the meantime.

That’s the bind Virginia is now in. The governor would rather have no legal market than a flawed one, as she put it, she’d prefer no retail sales at all to a rushed launch. But “no legal market” isn’t a neutral holding pattern. It’s the status quo that has existed since 2021: possession is legal, sales are not, and the illicit market fills the gap, untaxed and untested. The next real shot at fixing that comes in the 2027 legislative session, which pushes a realistic launch to 2028 at the earliest.

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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed the bill that would have launched legal adult-use cannabis sales, five years after the state legalized possession. She campaigned on supporting a retail market. The veto likely pushes any legal sales to 2028 or later.

Virginians still can’t legally buy the weed they’ve been allowed to possess since 2021. Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed the bill that would have changed that on Tuesday, killing the state’s adult-use retail market for at least another year and breaking a promise she made on the campaign trail.

The move stunned advocates who’d spent years waiting for a Democrat in the governor’s mansion. As Axios Richmond noted, it’s the third straight year a Virginia governor has vetoed retail cannabis legislation, but the first time it happened with a Democrat holding the office and the party controlling both chambers of the General Assembly. The trifecta was supposed to be the thing that finally got it done.

What the bill would have done

The legislation, sponsored by Del. Paul Krizek and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, both Democrats, would have opened licensed recreational sales on Jan. 1, 2027, under the oversight of the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority. It capped retail licenses at 350, set a state tax rate of 6% with a local option up to 3.5%, raised the possession limit from one ounce to 2.5, and prioritized smaller operators and applicants hit hardest by past enforcement.

An MJBizDaily analysis projected the market could reach $780 million in its first full year of sales, crossing the billion-dollar mark by year two. Lawmakers backing the bill pegged tax revenue at up to $400 million over the first five years.

Why Spanberger said no

In her veto statement, Spanberger said she supports a legal market but doesn’t think Virginia is ready to run one.

“I share the General Assembly’s goal of establishing a safe, legal, and well-regulated cannabis retail marketplace in the Commonwealth. 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.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger

She argued the state needed clearer enforcement authority, stronger testing and inspection resources, and better tools to go after illegal operators before opening the doors. She also pointed to advice from governors in states that already run adult-use markets, who she said told her to move methodically and get it right the first time.

The veto didn’t come out of nowhere. Back in April, Spanberger sent lawmakers a substitute bill with around 40 changes, according to the Washington Examiner. The revisions pushed the launch date to July 2027, cut the retail cap to 200, raised the tax to 8% in 2029, and added a stack of new criminal penalties. The General Assembly rejected the substitute, with the Senate voting 21-18 against it, and sent the original bill back to her desk unchanged. That left her with a straight up-or-down call by the May 23 deadline.

The criminal penalties were the dealbreaker

For the Democrats who built the bill, the new criminal charges in Spanberger’s substitute were a nonstarter. The governor’s version would have made it a Class 2 felony to transport 50 pounds or more of cannabis into Virginia with intent to distribute, a charge that carries 20 years to life in prison. It also would have turned the $25 civil fine for public consumption into a Class 4 misdemeanor and added a mandatory minimum fine for possession by anyone under 21.

Aird didn’t mince words about that part. She called the substitute “a de facto veto” because it departed so far from what lawmakers passed, and drew a hard line on the penalties, telling Virginia Scope that any version treating cannabis with consequences close to first-degree murder was never going to fly. For a party that has consistently framed legalization as a way to undo the racial damage of the War on Drugs, writing new felonies into the legalization bill defeated the point.

Krizek and Aird put out a joint statement that put the blame squarely on the governor.

“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.”

Del. Paul Krizek and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, in a joint statement

The timing sharpened the contradiction. Four days before the veto, Spanberger signed separate legislation, HB 26 and SB 62, creating an automatic resentencing process for the more than 1,000 Virginians still incarcerated or under supervision for cannabis convictions tied to conduct that’s been legal since 2021. NORML reported the relief could reach roughly 1,000 people. So in the same week, she offered a path home to Virginians punished under prohibition while blocking the legal market meant to stop new arrests, and her own substitute retail bill would have written fresh felonies into law. Forgiveness for the past, new penalties for the future.

There’s a pattern worth noting in how she handled both bills. On the resentencing legislation, Spanberger also sent lawmakers amendments, ones that Marijuana Moment reported would have stripped out the automatic relief and forced people to file petitions on their own. The General Assembly rejected those changes too. The difference is that she signed the resentencing bill anyway and vetoed the retail one. Same governor, same legislature, same pattern of pushback, two different outcomes.

Who wanted the veto

The cannabis bill had enemies outside the capitol. Virginia’s hemp industry, which sells hemp-derived THC products in smoke shops and stores across the state, saw the legislation as a threat to its existence. A coalition of hemp operators, which MJBizDaily reported included national alcohol retailer Total Wine & Spirits, formally asked Spanberger to veto the bill in a May 14 letter. Total Wine has leaned into hemp-derived THC drinks and edibles, and a regulated cannabis market would have cut into that business.

That puts the veto at the intersection of two fights playing out across the country: the turf war between state-legal cannabis and the booming hemp-THC market, and the alcohol industry’s growing interest in protecting its shelf space from both.

What happens now

The Democratic majority in the General Assembly isn’t big enough to override the veto. That means the next real shot at a sales bill comes in the 2027 legislative session, which pushes a realistic launch date to 2028 at the earliest, more than seven years after Virginia became the first Southern state to legalize possession.

There’s one slim alternative. A sales framework could still move through the state budget process, where the revenue projections give it some leverage. The budget deadline is July 1.

In the meantime, Virginia stays exactly where it’s been since 2021. Adults can possess up to an ounce, grow up to four plants at home, and gift cannabis to each other. What they can’t do is buy it legally, unless they qualify for the medical program run by the state’s five vertically integrated operators, or drive to Maryland. Medical sales in Virginia stand at $59.3 million in 2026, according to the state Cannabis Control Authority. The illicit market that lawmakers keep warning about handles the rest, untaxed and untested.

The politics here run deeper than cannabis. Spanberger’s veto landed as part of a broader power struggle with the General Assembly, and observers read it less as the death of legalization than as a new governor flexing against her own party’s legislature. Either way, the result on the ground is the same. Virginians wait, the unregulated market keeps selling, and the tax revenue keeps flowing somewhere other than the Commonwealth.

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Virginia lawmakers have sent a marijuana resentencing bill to Gov. Abigail Spanberger, opening a path for people still incarcerated or under supervision for old cannabis convictions to get back in court.

Virginia lawmakers have sent a marijuana resentencing bill to Gov. Abigail Spanberger, moving one of the state’s most overdue cannabis reforms a step closer to reality. The measure, SB 62, with HB 26 as its House companion, would create an automatic hearing process for certain people still incarcerated or under community supervision for marijuana-related offenses committed before July 1, 2021, the date Virginia’s personal-possession and home-grow law took effect.

The key vote came on March 6, 2026, when the Virginia Senate voted 21-19 to approve House changes and send the bill to the governor’s desk. That means this is no longer just another criminal justice proposal floating around Richmond. It has cleared the legislature. It is now a live test of whether Virginia is willing to do more than legalize marijuana on paper while leaving people trapped in the wreckage of the old system.

Last Prisoner Project, which has pushed for this kind of relief in Virginia for years, celebrated the bill’s passage on Monday, calling it a chance to correct punishments that no longer reflect the law or the moment. The group said the legislation guarantees automatic hearings for eligible marijuana cases and extends potential relief to people who are still incarcerated, under supervision or adjudicated as juveniles. Those are not small tweaks. That is the difference between symbolic reform and something that can actually change lives.

The politics here matter too. Similar legislation made it through last year, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin. This time, the bill lands on the desk of Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and Virginia’s rules mean it can become law even if she takes no action. The governor’s veto and amendment deadline is April 13.

There is also a bigger irony hanging over all of this. Virginia legalized personal possession and home cultivation years ago, and lawmakers are still working through separate legislation to launch adult-use sales. But for some people, the legal era still has not arrived. The state moved on. Their sentences did not.

That is what makes this bill worth watching. Not because it fixes everything. It does not. But because it starts to address one of the ugliest habits in American cannabis policy: declaring victory after legalization while thousands of people continue living with penalties from the version of the law that came before.

If Spanberger signs the bill, or lets it become law, Virginia will finally begin doing something legalization alone never guaranteed: going back for the people it left behind.

Photo: Shutterstock

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In a rare unanimous vote, Virginia lawmakers approved clearer medical cannabis labels and officially allowed deliveries to patients’ homes.

Cannabis legislation in Virginia has often looked like a political tug-of-war. Legalization debates stall, regulators hesitate and the rules shift depending on who’s in power.

But this week, lawmakers across the political spectrum managed to agree on something surprisingly practical.

Both chambers of the Virginia legislature unanimously approved House Bill 391, a measure that updates labeling rules for medical cannabis products and explicitly allows licensed operators to deliver them directly to patients.

The bill passed the House of Delegates 99-0 before clearing the Senate 40-0, sending it to the governor’s desk.

In today’s cannabis politics, a vote like that is almost unheard of.

What Actually Changes

The legislation updates how potency information appears on medical cannabis packaging in Virginia.

For edible and topical cannabis products, labels will now be required to list:

• total milligrams of THC and CBD in the product
• milligrams of THC and CBD per serving

For inhalable cannabis products like flower, labels must display the total percentage of THC and CBD.

The change might sound minor, but it reflects a broader effort to make cannabis labels easier to understand, depending on how a product is consumed. Edibles are dosed in milligrams. Flower is measured in percentages. The law now reflects that reality.

Medical Cannabis Delivery Gets the Green Light

The bill also formally allows licensed pharmaceutical processors and dispensing facilities to deliver medical cannabis directly to registered patients.

Deliveries will be permitted to a patient’s home, temporary residence or even their workplace.

However, the law draws clear boundaries. Cannabis deliveries will remain prohibited at certain locations, including:

• military bases
• schools and child day centers
• correctional facilities
• the Virginia State Capitol
• public gatherings such as festivals, concerts, races or sporting events
• transportation terminals

In other words, home delivery is allowed, but showing up with cannabis at a football stadium still isn’t.

Employees or delivery agents who fail to follow regulations could lose their ability to transport cannabis products under the oversight of the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.

A Small Fix in a Complicated System

HB391 also changes how expiration dates are determined for medical cannabis products.

Under the new rule, the 12-month stability testing period begins when a product is tested, rather than when its registration is approved. Products with longer expiration dates must still provide testing data to support them.

It’s a technical change, but one that brings Virginia’s system closer to how shelf life is handled in other regulated markets.

Rare Cannabis Consensus

Cannabis policy in the United States often moves in bursts of conflict. Virginia has been no exception. The state legalized possession in 2021 but has struggled to launch a fully regulated adult-use market.

HB391 does not solve those larger debates.

But it does show that when the focus shifts to patient access, transparency and practical regulation, consensus is still possible.

And in cannabis politics, that alone is worth noting.

Photo by Rowan Freeman on Unsplash

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Hoodie Analytics projects the Commonwealth could command 4% of national cannabis sales as incoming Governor Abigail Spanberger prepares to pursue adult-use retail legislation.

Virginia just leveled up. After years of stop-start cannabis reform, voters elected Abigail Spanberger as governor on November 4, setting the stage for the state’s long-awaited entry into adult-use cannabis.

Spanberger has been clear about her stance: legalization, done right, means a safe, transparent, and fair market that reinvests cannabis tax revenue back into Virginia communities. With her win, the path toward retail sales looks real.

This week, Hoodie Analytics co-founder and president Kris Walker shared a chart that lit up LinkedIn and the industry. His message was simple but bold: “A fully developed recreational adult-use program in Virginia represents almost 4% of total U.S. cannabis sales and nearly 7% of future growth.”

Hoodie’s analysis pegs Virginia’s potential at roughly $2.5 billion in annual sales once the market matures. That scale would be comparable to recent annual sales in Massachusetts and below Michigan’s latest totals, underscoring Virginia’s potential to become a Mid-Atlantic leader. See Massachusetts’ 2024 adult-use total of about $1.65 billion and Michigan’s 2024 total of roughly $3.27 billion (per CRA reporting).

For now, Virginians can legally possess up to an ounce of cannabis and grow up to four plants per household, but retail sales haven’t started. A legislative commission has been preparing a retail bill for the 2026 session. Earlier 2025 retail frameworks that referenced May 2026 were passed by the legislature but vetoed.

For comparison, Michigan topped $3 billion in legal cannabis sales in 2024. Under state law, adult-use purchases are subject to a 10% excise tax plus 6% sales tax. The Michigan Treasury separately reported more than $331 million available for distribution from the Marihuana Regulation Fund for FY 2024 (excise-tax-based, fiscal-year accounting).

Walker’s post captured the optimism swirling through the sector. “The Virginia opportunity is here,” he wrote, calling the state’s potential “almost 7% of future cannabis growth.” He also urged federal action, expressing hope that President Trump’s administration will follow through on campaign commitments for reform.

At the federal level, banking access remains constrained and Internal Revenue Code § 280E still applies while cannabis remains a Schedule I or II controlled substance. FinCEN’s 2014 guidance to financial institutions on marijuana-related businesses remains the operative framework.

The data backs the mood. Hoodie’s chart shows fully developed markets hitting about $800 per household in annual cannabis spend.

The Old Dominion may have been late to the legal weed party, but it has momentum. As Walker’s chart suggests, the next big growth story in U.S. cannabis might start in Richmond.

Photo by Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash

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Health officials in Virginia are taking steps to prevent children from being exposed to or getting their hands on illegal cannabis products.

Late last month, State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton sent a letter informing clinicians about “adverse events in children” who consumed CBD or THC. “Reported symptoms for these adverse events have included vomiting, hallucinations, low blood pressure, low blood sugar, altered mental status and anxiety,” Shelton stated in the letter. She also noted that some of those children were hospitalized.

The letter asked that local health departments keep track and report minors who are hospitalized due to cannabis consumption with a “special surveillance system.” “After a hospitalization or cluster is reported, VDH staff will collect information about the illness(es), possible exposures, and laboratory results,” Shelton explained.

Since 2019, Vermont Department of Health data shows that emergency visits in children under 17 have increased. In 2019, this included just 52 emergency room visits, but this increased steadily to 29 visits in 2020, 207 in 2021, 328 in 2022, and 377 in 2023.

However, this data only covers visits to the emergency room and not all incidents overall. “As a result of these data, the special surveillance system was established in order for VDH to receive these reports directly and better assess the impact of adverse events related to consumption of products containing THC or CBD among children in the Commonwealth,” Vermont Department of Health spokesperson, Cheryle Rodriguez, told Virginia Mercury.

This new surveillance initiative includes an online portal to report future “THC and CBD adverse events.” It includes an in-depth questionnaire about the person affected, the illness and symptoms, the product that was consumed, and where it was obtained.

The portal was implemented by legislators attempting to curb cannabis access for minors. Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed two bills (Senate Bill 448 and House Bill 698) that would have legalized adult-use cannabis sales in late March. “The most concerning consequence of cannabis commercialization is its impact on adolescents and our children,” Youngkin said in a statement. “As cannabis has become legalized and commercialized, calls to U.S. Poison Control for children who have overdosed on edible cannabis products have increased by 400% since 2016.”

Youngkin also claimed that it’s more difficult to control illegal cannabis when adult-use is legalized. “States that have attempted to regulate the black market for cannabis have generally failed,” he stated, adding that illegal cannabis in New York has tested positive for a variety of harmful contaminants “including tests for E. Coli, salmonella, accurate THC, and heavy metals.”

“It also does not eliminate the illegal black-market sale of cannabis, nor guarantee product safety,” the governor said of legalization. “Addressing the inconsistencies in enforcement and regulation in Virginia’s current laws does not justify expanding access to cannabis, following the failed paths of other states and endangering Virginians’ health and safety.”

Minors getting access to and consuming cannabis products has increased in recent years, and in some cases has affected larger groups of kids. Last October, four students from Armstrong High School in Richmond, Virginia, were in “medical distress” after consuming hemp-derived edibles. This led to the school issuing a complete ban of all candy and baked goods, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

After Youngkin’s adult-use cannabis bill veto, some supporters spoke out criticizing the move. “Gov. Youngkin’s dismissive stance towards addressing Virginia’s cannabis sales dilemma is unacceptable. Public servants are obligated to tackle pressing issues. This legislation would have combated the illegal market & ensured access to safe, tested and taxed cannabis products,” said former NFL player and bill sponsor, Sen. Aaron Rouse.

Virginia Mercury recently spoke with Virginia Commonwealth University forensic science professor, Michelle Peace, who said that better testing of hemp-derived products would help. “It’s important to know how pervasive the problem is,” Peace said, who has previously conducted vaping and cannabis research. Her most recent study includes an analysis of Virginia students between kindergarten and 12th grade. She has tested vape devices that were confiscated by various schools, and found that out of 369 items, 82% of them contained nicotine and 18% contained high concentrations of THC. “At the end of the day, there needs to be proper attribution as to what the child actually consumed,” Peace said.

In March, the Virginia Department of Forensic Science (DFS) released a report that studied reliable methods of testing for THC in blood and urine samples. The DFS received $290,353 from the Department of Justice in 2020 to conduct the study. Researchers showed a method of identifying different cannabinoids using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. This included separating THC metabolites and experimenting with different blood types such as bank blood, antemortem blood, postmortem blood, and also urine samples.

Adult-use cannabis was legalized as of July 1, 2021, but this only included cultivation, possession, and gifting. Medical cannabis was legalized in March 2017, and has expanded over time. However, a report published last November shows that many medical cannabis patients today are going out of state to purchase medicine because it’s more affordable elsewhere.

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Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin on Thursday vetoed a bill to legalize recreational marijuana sales, saying that regulated sales of cannabis would be a danger to health and safety. Virginia legalized the possession of small amounts of weed three years ago, but consumers remain without a legal way to purchase cannabis in the state.

The governor vetoed two identical bills passed by each chamber of the state legislature, SB 448 in the Senate and HB 698 in the House of Delegates. The legislation would have established a regulated cannabis market in Virginia, including provisions for the licensing of small and large retailers. 

Virginia lawmakers legalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults in 2021. But when the Republicans took control of the House of Delegates following an election later that year, a required second vote to legalize regulated cannabis sales was never held. 

“The proposed legalization of retail marijuana in the Commonwealth endangers Virginians’ health and safety,” Youngkin said in his veto statement. “States following this path have seen adverse effects on children’s and adolescent’s health and safety, increased gang activity and violent crime, significant deterioration in mental health, decreased road safety, and significant costs associated with retail marijuana that far exceed tax revenue.”

“It also does not eliminate the illegal black-market sale of cannabis, nor guarantee product safety,” the governor continued. “Addressing the inconsistencies in enforcement and regulation in Virginia’s current laws does not justify expanding access to cannabis, following the failed paths of other states and endangering Virginians’ health and safety.”

While Youngkin had previously made it clear he was not interested in authorizing regulated weed sales in Virginia, Democrats had hoped the legislation which serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations for a plan supported by the governor to build a $2 billion sports complex in northern Virginia. But earlier this month, the legislature passed the state’s final budget without including funding for the proposal, setting the stage for Thursday’s veto of the cannabis sales bill.

Lawmakers Blast Veto

Democratic Delegate Paul Krizek, the lead sponsor of the weed marketplace bill in the Virginia House of Delegates, said that the governor’s veto will further empower the state’s unregulated weed economy.

“Governor Youngkin’s failure to act allows an already thriving illegal cannabis market to persist, fueling criminal activity and endangering our communities,” he said in a statement cited by Politico. “This veto squandered a vital opportunity to safeguard Virginians and will only exacerbate the proliferation of illicit products, posing greater risks to our schools and public safety.”

Democratic state Senator Aaron R. Rouse, the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, also decried Youngkin’s refusal to approve the legislation.

“This veto blocks a pivotal opportunity to advance public health, safety, and justice in our Commonwealth,” Rouse said in a written statement to the Associated Press.

Rouse further criticized Youngkin’s veto of the marijuana sales bills on social media, writing on X that the governor’s “dismissive stance towards addressing Virginia’s cannabis sales dilemma is unacceptable. Public servants are obligated to tackle pressing issues. This legislation would have combated the illegal market & ensured access to safe, tested and taxed cannabis products.”

Governor Also Nixes Cannabis Sentencing Bill

Youngkin also vetoed a cannabis sentence modification bill (SB 696) spearheaded by the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit working to secure the release of all cannabis prisoners. Adrian Rocha, policy manager at the group, denounced the veto as a continuation of outdated policy.

“Under the bill, thousands of individuals charged for cannabis offenses under outdated laws would have had their sentences reevaluated in light of legalization,” he wrote in a statement emailed to High Times. “Instead, the Governor’s veto message not only ignored the intention of this bill but, more importantly, ignored the plight of thousands of families across the Commonwealth whose lives have been permanently altered by prohibitionist laws repealed three years ago!”

“Virginia may have ended cannabis prohibition in 2021, but there remains a significant injustice for those individuals who continue to be incarcerated for offenses that are no longer considered illegal,” Rocha added.

Although Youngkin nixed both bills, Democrats still have another chance to make them law by overriding his vetoes. The legislature returns to the capitol on April 17 to reconsider bills vetoed or amended by the governor.

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The Virginia Department of Forensic Science (VDFS) recently released a report regarding its federal funded study to research reliable testing methods for detecting THC in blood.

DFS was originally granted $290,353 in 2020 by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice. “The goal of this research project is to develop and validate an automated sample preparation technique for the quantitative evaluation of an expanded cannabinoid panel (CBD, CBN, THC, THC-A, CBC) in biological matrices…” stated the award description.

More than $1,188,390 million was available in total, and the sum was divided between a total of five projects. “The ever-changing climate of cannabis decriminalization and/or legalization has significantly impacted forensic laboratories and is anticipated to increase the caseload in forensic toxicology,” the description added. “In addition, products claiming to contain other cannabinoids, including cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, have become widely available.”

Four years later, VDFS has released a 107-page report in February about its findings. The report shows the detailed process of separating THC metabolites, experimenting using different types of blood (bank blood, antemortem blood, postmortem blood, and also urine).

Ultimately, researchers developed a process to identify different cannabinoids. “Within the research project, a method was developed for the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of cannabinoids in biological matrices using supported liquid extraction,” the report stated. “The methodology employed LCMSMS [liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry] with two analytical columns of different stationary phases to enhance the confirmation of cannabinoids.”

LCMSMS was used to help determine the slight differences between cannabinoids. “To enhance the selectivity of LCMSMS, a two-column chromatographic method was developed to enable additional confirmation regarding the identity of a compound,” researchers wrote. “Within the validations, the evaluation of interferences from other cannabinoids was critical in the assessment of the method and its validity.” 

VDFS was also awarded grant funds of $441,886 in 2023 with the intention of developing methods and tools to study other psychedelic compounds. “The detection of psychedelic compounds including psilocybin and N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) poses an analytical challenge in biological specimens due to their rapid metabolism and known structural instability,” the award description stated. “An analytical workflow for the identification and quantitation of these compounds and their main metabolites needs to consider appropriate long term storage conditions and sample preparation parameters to minimize the implications associated with their inherent instability.”

This research effort was also one of five studies chosen to receive a portion $1,928,846, all with the intent of “identification of the most efficient, accurate, reliable, and cost-effective methods for the identification, analysis, and interpretation of physical evidence for criminal justice purposes.”

The discussions surrounding cannabis testing and how to accurately measure impairment have long been contested. One published in 2022 in Scientific Reports found evidence that neither THC detected in breath or in blood is a reliable way to indicate impairment. “Our findings are consistent with others who have shown that delta-9-THC can be detected in breath up to several days since last use,” researchers wrote. “Because the leading technologies for breath-based testing for recent cannabis use rely solely on the detection of delta-9-THC, this could potentially result in false positive test outcomes due to the presence of delta-9-THC in breath outside of the impairment window.”

President Joe Biden signed an infrastructure bill in November 2021, which included a provision that required the Department of Transportation to complete a report that includes recommendations on providing researchers with cannabis in order to study drivers under the influence of cannabis. That report was supposed to be completed by November 2023, but has not yet been delivered. 

Sen. John Hickenlooper reached out to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in November 2022 to receive an update on the report. “Preventing distracted or impaired driving is a key step towards the goal of reducing traffic fatalities and improving roadway safety. In 2021, nearly 43,000 fatalities occurred from motor vehicle crashes, which is among the highest annual totals in decade[s],” Hickenlooper wrote. “While the IIJA includes many laudable provisions to establish performance standards for crash avoidance technologies, evaluate monitoring systems to reduce distracted driving, and issue rules to detect a driver’s impaired status, many ambiguities around defining marijuana-impaired driving underscore the importance of clarifying this policy uncertainty.”

In October 2023, a study conducted by the University of Colorado Anshutz Medical Campus analyzed how to more accurately detect cannabis. “Since THC accumulates and lingers in fat tissue, daily cannabis users may maintain constant elevations of THC in the blood even long after the psychoactive effects abate,” said Michael Kosnett, MD, MPH. “There has been a lot of concern about whether the use of cannabis has been associated with an increased risk of motor vehicle crashes or accidents in the workplace.”

The research team measured whole blood THC and its metabolites, and calculated two blood cannabinoid molar metabolite ratios. Researchers determined a 98% specificity rate when examining if a person had consumed cannabis within 30 minutes.

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The Virginia Senate and House of Delegates have approved competing bills to regulate and tax recreational marijuana sales, more than two years after the state legalized the possession of cannabis by adults. Each bill now heads to the other chamber of the state legislature, where lawmakers are expected to make several amendments to the measures.

Both bills legalize retail sales of cannabis to adults aged 21 and older with a scheduled start date of January 1, 2025, according to a report from the nonprofit cannabis advocacy group the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). In the House, HB 698 from Delegate Paul Krizek would levy a tax of 9% on cannabis sales, which would be exempt from normal state and local retail sales taxes. A separate bill from state Senator Aaron Rouse, SB 448, would add a 16% tax to cannabis sales on top of the regular state and local retail sales taxes.

NORML Development Director JM Pedini, who uses the pronoun they, testified before both chambers of the legislature in support of the bills. In the Senate, they asked lawmakers to amend SB 448 to remove penalties for people who make cannabis products such as baked goods or tinctures that are intended for personal use and for possessing legal amounts in public.

HB 698 was passed by delegates in the House on Monday by a vote of 52-48. In the Senate, SB 488 was approved by a vote of 21-18 on Tuesday. The two bills will each now head to the other legislative chamber for consideration.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are expected to amend the bills by substituting the version each chamber has already passed. The legislation would then head to a conference committee where representatives of each chamber will work to come to a consensus on a compromise measure.

“The real work will be done in conference committee, at which point conferees must decide if these are simply messaging bills, or if they intend to send Governor Youngkin something palatable enough for him to even consider not vetoing,” said NORML’s Pedini, who also serves as the executive director of Virginia NORML.

Weed Possession Legalized in 2021

Legislation passed in July 2021 legalized the possession of cannabis by adults aged 21 and older, but a reenactment clause requiring a second vote to authorize retail sales was not taken up after Republicans took control of the state legislature later in 2021. Last year, Republican Glenn Youngkin said that he was not interested in legalizing cannabis sales.

“Governor Youngkin has stated that he is not interested in any further moves towards legalization of adult recreational-use marijuana, so I wouldn’t expect that during his administration,” Joseph Guthrie, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said at a public meeting in June 2023, according to a report from the Washington Post.

Lawmakers also heard from opponents of legalizing sales of recreational weed in Virginia including, as might be expected, representatives of law enforcement. In a letter to the legislature from the Virginia Sheriff’s Association, the Virginia State Police Association, the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police and the Virginia Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, police officials told lawmakers that they are opposed to a regulated adult-use cannabis market.

“Legalizing retail sales will undermine the work Gov. Youngkin’s administration has undertaken to improve behavioral health in the Commonwealth,” the letter states, according to a report from local media. “We collectively appreciate the focus on the ‘Right Help Right Now Plan’ and the strides we have made in better serving our communities with additional behavioral-health resources.”

The letter also warned that a legal recreational marijuana market will not eliminate illicit sales of marijuana in Virginia.

“States with legal retail cannabis have failed to extinguish the cannabis black market,” the letter states, “while also seeing that cannabis tourism creates a nexus for the international drug trade that is dominated by organized crime, and an increase in illegal operation following legalization.”

But Pedini argues that since the possession of cannabis was legalized, the unlicensed cannabis market has increased significantly.

“Absent a legal marketplace, Virginia’s illicit market has since ballooned from $1.8 billion in 2021 to $2.4 billion in 2023,” said Pedini. “Unfortunately, consumers don’t know whether they’re getting a safe product or one contaminated with potentially dangerous adulterants. Unregulated marijuana isn’t lab tested for purity and it isn’t sold in packaging that is both childproof and not appealing to children.”

“Ultimately, Governor Youngkin will have to decide if he’s more interested in allowing unlicensed, unregulated operators to continue controlling cannabis in the Commonwealth or if he’s finally ready to extend the same commonsense provisions already used to regulate the legal sale of medical cannabis in Virginia to adult-use retail,” they added.

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California blazes a trail yet again.

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