When retail marijuana stores open next year, more Virginians are likely to start consuming.
Marijuana is currently decriminalized in Virginia. If you’re caught in public consuming it, you can be hit with a $25 civil penalty. But a new budget compromise struck this week increases that fine to $250 and adds new criminal penalties for a second offense and a third offense. Chelsea Higgs Wise at the group Marijuana Justice says that will re-criminalize marijuana.
"With this 900% increase to $250, we're not just going to see targeted policing," Higgs Wise says. "We're going to see the increase to increased police budgets, but now it's going to be an increase to ruining poor people's lives."
Re-criminalizing marijuana in Virginia will disproportionately harm marginalized communities, says JM Pedini at the marijuana advocacy group Virginia NORML.
"We know that marijuana penalties were disproportionately impacting Black, Brown, young, and poor Virginians prior to decriminalization, prior to legalization," Pedini says. "And what we don't want to see is a return to discriminatory policing."
The new penalties won’t start until next summer, so there’s still an opportunity for the next session of the General Assembly to ditch them when they gavel into session in January.
