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.