Posted on 04/23/2021 8:15:35 AM PDT by NobleFree
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed a new law legalizing marijuana in the state Wednesday.
It will go into effect on July 1, making Virginia the 17th state and first in the South to legalize cannabis for adult use.
"We are moving forward in a way that promotes equity, provides a clean slate to those with prior convictions, and reinvests in the communities harmed by over-criminalization," Northam tweeted, along with a photo from the bill signing.
Northam had sent a prior version of the bill back to state lawmakers with recommended changes that included moving up the date it would go into effect by three years.
At a news conference Wednesday, the governor said Black Virginians are three times as likely as White residents to be arrested on low-level marijuana charges, despite usage being roughly equal among all races.
Now anyone age 21 or older can legally possess up to an ounce of the drug, and residents are allowed to grow up to four plants. And some people convicted of lesser marijuana offenses will have their records expunged.
Smoking marijuana in public or driving under its influence will remain crimes. And selling the drug is not slated to become legal in the state until 2024.
Separately, Northam also rolled back a coronavirus ban on bar seating this week, allowing socially distanced groups to take advantage of the spaces again.
The Democrat-backed legalization bill has received a mixed reception from Republicans, who strongly opposed the bill in the state legislature.
Republican Delegate Chris Head called the rushed timeline "a train wreck" and said lawmakers had caved to activists.
Denver Riggleman, a former GOP congressman whose family owns a distillery in Afton, welcomed the new law.
"As someone used to dealing with controlled substances as a distiller, whiskey has been called ‘Devil water,’ legalizing the Devil’s lettuce is a real advantage for the Commonwealth and our economy," he said Thursday.
Kim Taylor, a Republican candidate for the state House of Delegates who is building a brewery in Chesterfield, had mixed feelings on the move.
"We absolutely need to take steps in the Commonwealth for clear criminal justice reform, enabling medical marijuana use and stopping disproportionate incarceration," she said. "At the same time, I don’t feel out current legislators in Richmond have done their job analyzing the long-term social, health and economic impact of legalizing cannabis."
Noting: THIS (marijuana vote) is why we have a Governor Whitler.
Are the states where the drug alcohol is legal "losers"?
The Stupid Party should get on the pro-liberty and electorally popular side of this issue.
“VA doesn’t have a standard for weed impaired driving.”
This is really a growing National problem, with the widespread legalizations. There is a need for such legal standards, procedures like field sobriety tests, and technology like alcohol breathalyzers.
There is an opportunity for some small secondary industries need to fill these niches.
First you allow people to be hooked on addictive drugs, then you withhold the drugs unless you are compliant. So Nicotine is addictive but weed isn’t????
Great. Now we’ll have drivers on the road getting high behind the wheel, as if we didn’t have enough inattentive drivers yakking and texting on their ____ cell phones.
Stupid, hypocritical Virginians think it’s just fine for him to dress up either as a Klansman or a stereotypical silly black man?
But each and every one in America who even tweets a disagreement with BLM is cancelled and hounded and doxxed?
The standard is going to be the same as the objective signs of intoxication relied on by the Commonwealth in a DWI prosecution where there is no breath or blood test admissible.
"National" in the sense of multistate - but properly federal only as regards stoned drivers crossing state lines.
There is a need for such legal standards, procedures like field sobriety tests, and technology like alcohol breathalyzers.
There is an opportunity for some small secondary industries need to fill these niches.
Agreed.
Both are - nicontine more so. Should both be banned, or neither? (I say neither.)
Virginia is another state compromising the health and safety of its citizens by legalizing a gateway drug.
I did not see a word about the increases in accidents, physical and mental health problems, and road safety becoming worse in states with legalized pot, like Colorado.
Greed and false rationale have trumped health and safety in yet onother state. Let's keep dumbing down America. Health and safety are no longer priorities.
get on the dole and smoke dope. What a Governor.
A stoned electorate is much easier to rule.
Yeah, go figure.
“Ask about the difficulties and costs associated with getting pothead drivers off the roads.”
With alcohol, it is pretty much a push button operation to prosecute DUI. Present breathalyzer results, issue sentence.
For marijuana, tests indicate if you have used marijuana in recent weeks, rather than being impaired while driving. Then it is down to subjective opinion, about the condition while driving.
I guess it is like many other prescription drugs that impair drivers in that respect. Alcohol is an easy one, because of the technology and developed legal standards and procedures.
I hope it works out better for them than it did for California. Illegal pot shops are popping up all over Chula Vista because Sacramento never met an industry it didn’t want to tax and regulate to death.
I don’t have a problem with legalization per se. The problem is it is never JUST about legalizing marijuana. Marijuana legalization is always accompanied by a panoply of leftist social programs like reparations to “communities most impacted by the drug war” (whites arrested for marijuana possession are on their own) and defunding the police.
There is also the fact that California’s roads are still riddled with potholes and her schools remain dead last in the nation. Wherever the marijuana money’s going it ain’t going back to We the People. They promised us the moon in order to get us nonusers on board and so far have failed to deliver.
Hopefully Virginians are smarter about it than California has been.
“”National” in the sense of multistate”
That is what I meant (not Federal). Every State should get ready for it.
Yeah them potheads,hippies,long hairs are gonna be the end of the world😎. Oh wait...some of them stoners invented iPhones, are running billion dollar companies and created vaccines and other medical breakthroughs.
So tell the group how you know potheads are driving and just how you’d deal with that. There are laws against driving while drunk but sure hast stopped some morons from doing it.
Not necessarily. The homeless in Oregon go to the dispensaries a great deal. Some of the weed is super cheap. And the high THC strains are not available on the street.
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