A coalition of national and state organizations, led by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has sent a letter to Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger urging her to allow adult-use sales legislation to become law.
This legislation “respond[s] to the widespread sale of unregulated intoxicating products, the lack of consumer protections, the absence of retail oversight, and the need for effective enforcement tools aimed at bad actors rather than responsible adults,” the letter states. “[It] replace[s] today’s predatory and unaccountable illicit operators with a regulated marketplace, enforceable rules, oversight, product safeguards, age verification, and the strict consumer safety standards already in use for Virginia medical cannabis.”
The letter is signed by Virginia NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project, the Virginia Cannabis Association, Law Enforcement Action Partnership, NORML, the Virginia Minority Cannabis Coalition, and others.
Virginia NORML is also promoting a separate action alert encouraging voters to contact the Governor’s office. To date, nearly 2,000 communications have been sent by Virginia voters.
Lawmakers this session sent the Governor a pair of bills to regulate the adult-use cannabis market. Despite having previously expressed support for enacting retail sales, the Governor nonetheless called for numerous and comprehensive amendments to the bill. These included provisions repealing key elements of Virginia’s existing decriminalization and legalization laws, re-instituting steep criminal penalties for public consumption, and automatically revoking driver’s licenses of young people who purchase marijuana, among other changes to state policy. She also called for delaying the start of adult-use retail sales until July 2026.
Lawmakers rejected the Gov. Spanberger’s proposed changes. The Governor now must decide whether to accept lawmakers’ version of the bill or to veto it.
Virginia lawmakers enacted legislation in 2021 legalizing the use, possession, and personal cultivation of marijuana by adults. That legislation called upon politicians to approve retail sales in a subsequent 2022 vote. However, when Republicans gained control of the House and the governorship in 2022, they failed to advance legislation to do so.
After Democrats regained the House, their 2024 and 2025 legislative efforts to regulate retail sales were vetoed by former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Sixty percent of registered Virginia voters favor allowing for the sale of adult-use marijuana products by licensed dispensaries, according to statewide polling data compiled earlier this year by The Wason Center at Christopher Newport University.
An action alert urging Governor Spanberger not to veto the legislation is available in NORML’s Take Action Center. Additional information is available from Virginia NORML.
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