The time has come to fully decriminalize Marijuana
In Virginia, it’s legal to smoke marijuana, except that you can, and likely will, run into trouble with the law. If this sounds confusing to you, welcome to the legal dilemma facing thousands of Virginians.
Let me explain: Most people think marijuana is now completely legal to use in the state of Virginia. But the truth is that there is still plenty of work to be done in the Virginia state legislature.
While simple possession was made legal, the state failed to fully decriminalize the drug. Because of that failure, hundreds of people remain in jail on marijuana-related convictions, parents are losing custody of their children, workers are being fired from their jobs, and students are being cut off from their education, all for doing something that is supposedly “legal.”
While lawmakers seem eager to move forward with regulating commercial sales (which could mean $300 million in annual revenue for the state), they also seem ready to ignore the deep injustices that remain. I urge the Virginia General Assembly to do better.
Remember the long, confusing road we’ve taken on marijuana decriminalization so far. My organization, Marijuana Justice, and other advocates pushed hard for any legalization effort to prioritize racial justice and civil rights. When the bill finally passed, lawmakers made clear they understood the stakes.
Gov. Ralph Northam pushed for faster enactment, referencing an influential state report, which found that Black people were arrested 3.5 times more often than white people in Virginia for marijuana. Possession of up to one ounce of marijuana became legal in July of 2021.
Most people seemed to consider the issue resolved, and marijuana was an under-debated issue in the 2021 election. That proved to be a mistake, as the GOP re-criminalized misdemeanor possession when they took the House and governor’s mansion in 2022. Now we risk losing the original intent behind marijuana legalization — unwinding the decades of racist enforcement of drug laws that have deeply damaged Black families and communities. Here’s some examples of the problems that remain:
Resentencing: There are over 500 Virginians, at least, sitting behind bars for doing something that’s no longer against the law. People like Ramone Brown, a Virginia man who’s serving nine years in prison, separated from his family and his freedom, for a probation violation based on a marijuana charge that would just be a civil fine today. It makes absolutely no sense for the state to acknowledge the racist harm of years of marijuana enforcement, vote to end it, and yet leave its consequences unaddressed. It is inhumane and should be a top priority of lawmakers going forward.
Parental rights: Unlike in other states that have legalized possession, Virginia law still says a parent can have their children placed in foster care because of use of “narcotics or other dangerous drugs,” with no clarification on what that includes. It’s not known how many parents have lost their children specifically because of marijuana, but up to 40% of all removals were related to substance abuse in 2019.
Overall, the state child welfare system disproportionately impacts Black families: 29% of children in foster care in Virginia were Black as of 2017, while only 20% of the state’s children are Black. Marijuana alone should no longer be a factor in a judge removing a child from their parents’ custody nor impact visitation. There is legislation on this issue ready for action, and the General Assembly should take it up for passage in the upcoming session.
Workers’ rights: Business owners are still allowed to fire employees for testing positive for marijuana, according to state law. To be clear, this is not about on-the-job behavior, this is the equivalent of showing up at work completely sober but being fired anyway just because you had a beer the night before. Some city governments in the state are still making a negative marijuana test a prerequisite for hiring.
Youth and student rights: Marijuana legalization in Virginia should not include the criminalization of children or college students. Children under the age of 18 still face criminal penalties for marijuana under the youth delinquency code, so we are still setting children up for criminal consequences. We should instead be investing resources to ensure children do not seek out marijuana as a coping mechanism or to meet unmet financial needs. Meanwhile, college students in Virginia can still also face steep consequences for what is otherwise legal possession of marijuana.
Virginia’s public colleges and universities are beholden to federal law, but have a lot of autonomy to decide the severity of consequences for marijuana-related drug offenses for students, and policies vary throughout the state. Many are using “zero-tolerance” policies that can include expulsion. Those responses push students, particularly Black, brown and low income students, out of school and into the criminal justice system.
Repeal and repair must come before regulation. The state must follow through on its original intentions to redress the deep damage marijuana enforcement has done to our communities. Lawmakers in both chambers must make ongoing decriminalization a necessary condition of moving forward on the commercial sales regulation that the corporate marijuana industry is so eagerly awaiting.
