Last week, the State Senate brought forth a bill that would create a recreational marijuana market in Virginia. However, Glenn Youngkin won the governorship back in 2021, and his stance on marijuana has been consistent from the beginning, and he vetoed the bill as soon as it came to his desk.
Virginia is in a tricky place with weed. It’s legal recreationally in the state, but a market was not a part of the original bill, and when the Republicans won the majority of the House of Delegates the same year Youngkin was elected, it made it very difficult to get that started.
Flash forward to 2023, and Democrats won back the House of Delegates. But Youngkin remains the Governor, and their views on marijuana legalization finally clashed on Thursday when he rejected a bill they brought to him.
Initially, the Democrats in the House had meant to use a proposed $2 billion sports stadium funding as a bargaining chip to get their marijuana legalization passed, but they failed to bring that part to the table.
So the move was predictable despite it’s disappointment. However, this certainly won’t be the end of the Democrats’ attempts at a marijuana market in the state of Virginia, considering legal recreational marijuana without a market is like a Romeo without his Juliet.
Read the original story at Politico.
