Michael Pope reports.
Possession of marijuana could be legal as soon as this summer, and it could be legal to buy as soon as New Year’s Day 2024. Lawmakers are working their way through the details of a massive bill on marijuana legalization. And one part that Republicans have been critical of is preferential treatment for licenses to people who live in neighborhoods that have been over-policed in the war on drugs.
Senator Bill DeSteph is a Republican from Virginia Beach.
Credit U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration And let us not mistake where you do sell drugs will be back in those same neighborhoods that you grew up and your family grew up in selling drugs, he said.
Michael Pope reports.
As Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw said on the Senate floor, it s high time Virginia does something about marijuana. He made that crack after senators started a debate about the legalization of marijuana at 4:20 in the afternoon.
They approved a bill introduced by Senator Adam Ebbin, a Democrat from Alexandria that creates an independent agency to regulate the new industry. It would also create social equity licenses to make sure that communities harmed by the war on drugs are able to benefit from the coming windfall profits.
Credit U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration It is a forward thinking, deliberative approach to create a regulated adult-use market for cannabis, which will reform our criminal justice system and begin the long process of undoing the harms of prohibition, Ebbin explained.
Michael Pope reports.
When the prohibition on alcohol was repealed back in the 1930s, the General Assembly created a new liquor control plan and set up a new agency to regulate it: The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority. Now Governor Ralph Northam says ABC should also regulate marijuana when it s legalized.
Senator Lionel Spruill is a Democrat from Chesapeake who disagrees with the governor.
Credit U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration I think this is too much for ABC to handle. We need to have a regulatory commission, another commission to start not ABC. This is really important for us. We need to start from ground zero, Spruill says. Find another agency that has the time and the know-how to put all the staff together to make this thing work for us. This is not the job for ABC.