Virginia Is Taking Baby Steps Towards Medical Marijuana Legalization

To Virginia’s north marijuana regulations are easing and some Virginia lawmakers are pushing to bring reform back home. Maryland and D.C. already have medical marijuana programs, and D.C. has legalized both cultivation and possession. In Maryland, lawmakers are working to legalize recreational marijuana.

The General Assembly is not discussing marijuana in any capacity. They’ve even nixed potential expansions to the medical marijuana program, according to WAMU 88.5 Radio. In Virginia, it’s only approved for patients with epilepsy to use CBD oil. The oil is illegal, but patients with epilepsy and a doctor’s recommendation are likely safe from prosecution.

One step that is working for the program is a recently approved Senate Bill to expand the qualifying conditions to include Crohn’s disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS and glaucoma. This is one of the baby steps the state is taking, but lawmakers are beyond hesitant in going any further with marijuana right now.

Cancer survivor and Virginia NORML volunteer Jenn Michelle Pedini said, “We’re not quite there in Virginia.”

Pedini also said, “We are moving forward with some affirmative defenses for possession of oil. We’re doing some affirmative defense for production of oil, and that will be regulated by the Board of Pharmacy. That’s going to be the most significant gains in this short session.”

If the expansion bill recently approved by the Senate becomes law, it will make the work of House Delegate Glenn Davis’ work all worth it. He sponsored a bill to allow those with Crohn’s disease to use CBD oil.

Davis said, “We all look at this and say, ‘This could be our wife, our husband, our child, our mother,’ so it’s very personal to many of us.”

There are several bills in the hands of lawmakers in Virginia. Not everyone is optimistic that possession punishments will lessen or that the legislature will allow for the production of CBD oil in state. Lawmakers have tried for the last several sessions to move decriminalization and medical marijuana expansion bills through the legislature, with no success. Some are hoping that as discussions take place more often and people become less afraid of marijuana that Virginia lawmakers will reconsider previous decisions and move toward legalization.