Virginia’s Republican Governor and other leaders are pursuing a plan to bring the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals to Alexandria. The state’s Democratic Senate Leader suggested that her support of the plan could be conditional on getting a law to legalize the sale of marijuana passed.
In a Monday social media post, Senate President Pro Tempore Louis Lucas said: “Some people want sports stadiums. I want tolls removed from Hampton Roads. *And* I want the recreational sale of cannabis.”
She said, “I guess we’ll have to find some compromises in this session.”
The comment came as supporters of moving the Washington, D.C. team to Virginia are preparing to push for a $2 billion entertainment area in Alexandria, including a stadium, practice facilities, performing arts venues, and an updated esports venue, along with a variety mixed-use developments.
According to a Virginia Mercury report , the project would need support from the state legislator to create a brand new authority for issuing development bonds. It would be located near the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus as well as Amazon HQ2.
Some people are interested in sports stadiums.
I want the tolls removed from Hampton Roads and I want marijuana to be sold recreationally.
We will need to compromise during this session.
L. Louise Lucas December 11th, 2023
One commenter said: “This sounds like your vote for the arena could be bought.” Lucas responded by quoting the First Black Woman to be elected to Congress, “I am not bought and I am not bossed.”
Lucas has supported marijuana legalization since years. She called her colleagues and the then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, was asked to bring about the change in that year. They did. She proclaimed the end of cannabis prohibition on April 20, the following year. But she said that “much more work remains to be done.”
The legalization of cannabis retail sales is a major reform that many Democrats want to see. In 2021, Democrats led by lawmakers will l equalize the use, possession, and limited personal cultivation by adults. After gaining control of both the House of Delegates in Virginia and the Governor’s Office, Republicans blocked the required reenactment of retail sales regulations.
The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a legal sales regulation bill this year, but a GOP House majority killed the legislation.
Storefronts that are illegal and unlicensed have proliferated throughout the state because there is no legal place where consumers can purchase cannabis.
Lucas’s post on social media shows that some legislators still want to see progress made in legal sales.
Adam Ebbin, a colleague of Lucas’s (D), said recently that he is “confident” legislators can send a law to tax and regulate the marijuana sales. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, in the next year. He noted that the question is whether supporters are able to build enough bipartisan backing to avoid a possible veto.
Ebbin has stated his intention to introduce a marijuana bill during the next legislative session. He said that at the time he was unable to provide details about the proposal, “because we’re still working on the final draft with legislative services.”
After the November elections, Democrats now have majorities both in the House of Representatives and Senate , which some supporters see as a way to allow legal sales.
It’s not clear how Ebbin’s bill, which would legalize the commercial sale of cannabis, will do. He was the champion for the 2021 legalization legislation in California. The bill is expected to be introduced in the coming session by Ebbin, who championed the state’s 2021 legalization law. However, it is unclear how well this proposal will fare.
Chelsea Higgs Wise is the executive director at Marijuana Justice. She has stated that Democrats should use their new powers to pass a law that prioritizes social equity, and that includes reparations for the harms caused by the drug war in the framework of legal sales. She also doubted that Democrats could avoid Youngkin’s possible veto despite how much compromise they made with Republicans.
“I think that Gov. Youngkin will make sure that everyone knows he was able to veto a Virginia adult sales bill,” she said in an interview with Marijuana Moment. “He would do anything to put that on his Republican résumé.”
The governor’s comments are less clear. While Youngkin’s Administration has shown a reluctance to push forward with further reforms for adult-use marijuana, his own remarks have not been as clear.
Youngkin, a local media outlet VPM told the local public broadcaster VPM that he did not write legislation on their behalf. This was in February when Ebbin’s separate sales bill was still being debated. “I’ve said it over and over, that I believe creating a cannabis market is very complex. Other states have had to struggle, and they need to do the work. “I’ve seen them sending me bills.”
Ebbin, who saw the Republican-controlled House vote down a Senate-passed sales measure in the 2022 session, told Marijuana Moment in October that Youngkin “has been a challenge to deal with because he hasn’t been forthcoming with his views on what he’s willing to support.”
He said, “I don’t know what the Governor will sign since he has been kind of cagey in his public comments and not really supportive,” at the time.
Ebbin said to Marijuana Moment that it is possible for Democrats to rally around a narrow bill designed to appeal to Youngkin, only to see the governor veto that same bill. “Yeah. I would say that there would be substantial chance that that would happen.”
According to a Gallup survey released last month, the majority of Republicans and 70 percent of Americans in general support legalizing marijuana.
Ebbin’s bill from the past legislative session would have allowed recreational cannabis sales to begin on January 1, 2024. The sales would have been made through medical cannabis dispensaries and new businesses operated by people living in “historically economic disadvantaged communities.” These operators would also be eligible for support and training from existing medical cannabis companies.
The law also contained provisions to resentence people who are currently in prison for cannabis convictions. The marijuana products would have been subjected to an excise duty of 21 percent, with localities able to add a further three percent. The revenue would have been used to support reinvestment programmes for historically economically depressed communities, education programs for youth at risk and addiction prevention services.
After the GOP-controlled House voted down that proposal, they also killed a separate bill which would have allowed medical cannabis businesses to take certain state-level deductions. Republicans also killed separate legislation that would have create an advisory board for psilocybin and reschedule psychedelic.
In Virginia, several businesses that sell hemp products were recently fined five-figure sums in an effort to crackdown on hemp cannabinoid product.
has also been sued by two companies and a citizen over the new tightened rules for the hemp products. These set the maximum THC concentration in hemp products to 0.3 percent and 2 milligrams of THC per package. This threshold rendered hundreds products that were already available illegal. In October, however, a court denied their claim.
Lucas was named as a co-owner in a media probe last year in relation to CBD products. She also owned a cannabis store in Portsmouth. The shop was found to have mislabeled items, including some that contained THC at illegal levels. This problem is prevalent among hemp-derived CBD, which are unregulated in many states.
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The post Top Virginia senator wants legal marijuana sales in exchange for approving sports stadium preferred by Governor first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
