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Virginia looks unlikely to hit 2024 target for retail marijuana sales

Illustration of a clock with cannabis leaves for hands.

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

When Virginia lawmakers voted nearly two years in the past to legalize marijuana, their 2024 goal date to start retail gross sales struck many as a very long time to attend.

What’s occurring: It is beginning to appear like it may not even occur in 2024.

State of play: Any laws authorizing retail gross sales in 2024 must go when the Normal Meeting convenes for the subsequent session in January.

  • Meaning it might nonetheless should get previous the identical GOP majority that refused to offer the problem a listening to final session.

What they’re saying: “Nothing has modified that I am conscious of,” Garren Shipley, spokesperson for Home Speaker Todd Gilbert, tells Axios.

Catch up quick: Virginia lawmakers voted to legalize possession however not gross sales of leisure marijuana in July 2021.

  • The choice to attend till 2024 to start retail gross sales was initially supposed to offer lawmakers and regulators a three-year runway to arrange the market, however earlier than Democrats finalized the plan, they misplaced management of the Home and governor’s workplace, thrusting the state into weed purgatory.

Sure, however: Some lobbyists engaged on legalization stay hopeful Senate Democrats and Home Republicans can attain an settlement on the problem.

  • Greg Habeeb, a former GOP delegate who represents the Virginia Hashish Affiliation, says that final yr Republicans barely had a month to work on the problem between successful the bulk again and the start of the legislative session.
  • “After we get to session subsequent yr, Republicans could have had a full yr of being in cost and finding out Republican options,” Habeeb says.

Between the traces: There are indicators some key Republicans are taking an curiosity within the challenge, with lawmakers representing agricultural areas taking the lead, together with Home Majority Chief Terry Kilgore.

  • However even when the GOP does play ball this yr, the massive query shall be whether or not the 2 sides can “craft a model of the invoice that may choose up Republican assist with out shedding Democratic assist,” Habeeb says.
Virginia’s thriving illicit market
weed
Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

It might nonetheless be unlawful to purchase marijuana, however it’s by no means been simpler.

What’s occurring: The illicit market has moved from the shadows to social media, the place hashish entrepreneurs prepared to take a danger brazenly promote supply companies and pop-up occasions.

  • Some sellers are even blanketing neighborhoods and occasions with enterprise playing cards.

What they’re saying: “Somebody got here as much as our sales space at Satisfaction and dropped off enterprise playing cards — it has their enterprise title and a technique of contact to purchase weed,” JM Pedini, the chief director of the legalization advocacy group Virginia NORML, tells Axios.

In the meantime, loads of brick-and-mortar outlets proceed to promote artificial THC merchandise regardless of warnings by state regulators and Lawyer Normal Jason Miyares.

  • State meals security regulators mentioned they’ve carried out 2,500 inspections since July 1 to “to teach meals producers and retail meals institutions and encourage voluntary compliance,” based on a spokesman.

Why it issues: The proliferation of unregulated gross sales exposes individuals to untested and doubtlessly unsafe merchandise, Pedini mentioned.

What we’re watching: Lobbyists and legislators engaged on the problem inform us the booming illicit and grey market is the No. 1 case for getting Republicans on board with legalizing retail gross sales.

By the numbers: medical marijuana
Illustration of weekly pill case with marijuana leaves labels.
Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios

With leisure retail gross sales nonetheless in limbo, the state’s 2-year-old medical hashish program stays the one authorized route for Virginians to purchase marijuana.

There are at the moment round 20,300 lively sufferers getting hashish merchandise within the state — a sixfold improve since Jan. 2021, Ngiste Abebe, vice chairman of public coverage at Columbia Care, tells Axios.

  • Columbia Care controls two of the state’s 4 licenses to course of marijuana for medicinal use — gLeaf within the Richmond space and Cannabist in Hampton Roads.

Zoom in: Ache, nervousness and insomnia are the commonest causes sufferers search a prescription, Abebe tells Axios.

Anecdotally, the common affected person in Virginia appears to be a 55-year-old girl, Abebe says.

The newest: Columbia Care has two new dispensaries opening within the coming weeks — one in Williamsburg and one within the former Want Provide retailer in Carytown.

  • Dispensaries in Colonial Heights and close to Chesterfield City Heart space additionally within the works domestically, however there is not any timeline but for these to open.
  • gLeaf can also be taking a look at opening dispensaries in Ashland or the East Finish, Richmond BizSense reported.

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