Marijuana law stalls in House of Delegates

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — As the Virginia General Assembly reaches the halfway point of this year’s session, one of the year’s most complicated issues — possible changes to the state’s new law legalizing recreational marijuana — has stalled in the GOP-controlled House.

Terry Kilgore, the chamber’s majority leader, said this week that he does not expect the House to vote on its own measures before the Tuesday deadline for each chamber to complete work on its own legislation. Instead, he said the caucus would wait for the Democrat-controlled Senate to send a bill over and “go from there.”

“We want to get it right. There’s a lot of regulation, enforcement … so there’s just a lot of questions, and you’re running out of time,” he said Wednesday.

Last year, when state government was under total Democratic control, lawmakers passed legislation that legalized adult possession of up to an ounce of marijuana and created a path for retail sales to begin in 2024. The bill passed in a chaotic rush, strictly along party lines, with no GOP support. But because the bill has a reenactment clause, lawmakers are scheduled to vote again this year on the complex regulatory structure needed to set up the retail marijuana market.

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