Richmond, VA: Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin remains unwilling to consider legislative efforts to regulate adult-use marijuana sales.
Speaking to lawmakers on Monday during his State of the Commonwealth address, the Governor said, “Everyone knows where I stand on establishing a retail marijuana market.” He then encouraged legislators to work together on “other issues where we can find common ground.” Last year, he vetoed legislation that sought to establish regulations licensing marijuana retailers.
In his remarks, Gov. Youngkin alleged that jurisdictions with regulated adult-use markets have experienced “significant negative impacts” on mental health and adolescents’ safety. In fact, federally funded survey data reports that teens’ use of marijuana is at historic lows. Further, studies from both the United States and Canada have failed to identify a relationship between marijuana legalization and increased incidences of psychiatric illnesses among either high-risk individuals or the general population.
JM Pedini, NORML’s Development Director and Executive Director of Virginia NORML, pushed back on Gov. Youngkin’s claims. “What’s actually ‘bad for youth’ is leaving the control of Virginia’s marijuana market to illicit operators,” Pedini said. “Data gleaned from decades of real-world regulatory experience with cannabis in the US clearly shows that states which take marijuana off the street corner and place it behind an age-verified counter see a drop in youth use.”
In 2021, Virginia lawmakers enacted legislation legalizing the use, possession, and personal cultivation of marijuana by adults. That legislation called upon lawmakers to authorize licensed cannabis sales by January 1, 2024. However, when Republicans gained control of the House and Governorship in 2022, they failed to advance legislation to do so.
Since being elected Governor in 2021, Youngkin has steadfastly refused to consider the issue.
Additional information is available from Virginia NORML.