RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) – Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin made it clear on the first day of the 2024 General Assembly session that he’s not interested in having a retail cannabis market in Virginia.
Virginia legalized cannabis more than two years ago, allowing people 21 and older to possess small amounts. And while Virginians can buy cannabis at dispensaries through the state’s medical program, there’s no way to buy it for recreational use.
Gov. Youngkin was asked whether he would back opening a retail market for recreational sales after his annual State of the Commonwealth address to the Virginia General Assembly.
“I’ve said before, this is an area that I really don’t have any interest in,” Youngkin told reporters Wednesday. “What I want us to work on are areas that we can find a meeting of the mind and press forward for the betterment of Virginia.”
When asked a follow-up if he would veto a cannabis market bill that reaches his desk, which would be his only weapon to stop one as Democrats control the legislature, Youngkin repeated that he doesn’t “have a lot of interest in it.”
Earlier in the day, Democrats in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates said during a press conference that they still consider cannabis a priority and several are carrying legislation in 2024 to set up a recreational market.
“It’s an important public safety matter that we have a regulated market,” Virginia House Majority Leader Charniele L. Herring (D-Alexandria) told reporters. “It’s sort of shocking that we’ve gone two years under Republican leadership in the House, and it stopped us from getting a regulated market.”
Del. Herring said moving forward without a regulated market would allow people to continue to skirt Virginia’s laws on cannabis, endangering consumers and children. She sent a warning to Youngkin about the optics of a veto.
“The governor should be careful,” Herring said. “A bill gets to his desk, and he vetoes it, I’m not sure what that communication is going to be to the public about their safety.”
Whether newly empowered Democrats can leverage their power in the General Assembly to get Youngkin and Republicans to the negotiating table on a cannabis market remains unclear.
State Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), the Virginia Senate’s president pro-tempore, has called for recreational cannabis sales to begin and funding for toll relief and public schools in Hampton Roads, indicating she will use these issues as bargaining chips in negotiations for a new sports arena in northern Virginia that Youngkin wants.
Youngkin has been noncommittal on creating a retail cannabis market in his two years in office, instead focusing on cracking down on the sale of intoxicating hemp-derived products and getting more possession penalties into law.
State Republicans have taken Youngkin’s lead on cannabis, rejecting Democrats’ push for establishing a recreational market when they controlled the House in his first two years in office.
Garren Shipley, a House Republican Caucus spokesman, told 8News Thursday he wasn’t aware of any GOP delegates considering joining Democrats for a bipartisan proposal but said “past activity suggests it’s not likely.”
A Senate Republican Caucus spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
