Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed the bill that would have launched legal adult-use cannabis sales, five years after the state legalized possession. She campaigned on supporting a retail market. The veto likely pushes any legal sales to 2028 or later.
Virginians still can’t legally buy the weed they’ve been allowed to possess since 2021. Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed the bill that would have changed that on Tuesday, killing the state’s adult-use retail market for at least another year and breaking a promise she made on the campaign trail.
The move stunned advocates who’d spent years waiting for a Democrat in the governor’s mansion. As Axios Richmond noted, it’s the third straight year a Virginia governor has vetoed retail cannabis legislation, but the first time it happened with a Democrat holding the office and the party controlling both chambers of the General Assembly. The trifecta was supposed to be the thing that finally got it done.
What the bill would have done
The legislation, sponsored by Del. Paul Krizek and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, both Democrats, would have opened licensed recreational sales on Jan. 1, 2027, under the oversight of the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority. It capped retail licenses at 350, set a state tax rate of 6% with a local option up to 3.5%, raised the possession limit from one ounce to 2.5, and prioritized smaller operators and applicants hit hardest by past enforcement.
An MJBizDaily analysis projected the market could reach $780 million in its first full year of sales, crossing the billion-dollar mark by year two. Lawmakers backing the bill pegged tax revenue at up to $400 million over the first five years.
Why Spanberger said no
In her veto statement, Spanberger said she supports a legal market but doesn’t think Virginia is ready to run one.
“I share the General Assembly’s goal of establishing a safe, legal, and well-regulated cannabis retail marketplace in the Commonwealth. Virginians deserve a system that replaces the illicit cannabis market with one that prioritizes our children’s health and safety, public safety, product integrity, and accountability.”
Gov. Abigail Spanberger
She argued the state needed clearer enforcement authority, stronger testing and inspection resources, and better tools to go after illegal operators before opening the doors. She also pointed to advice from governors in states that already run adult-use markets, who she said told her to move methodically and get it right the first time.
The veto didn’t come out of nowhere. Back in April, Spanberger sent lawmakers a substitute bill with around 40 changes, according to the Washington Examiner. The revisions pushed the launch date to July 2027, cut the retail cap to 200, raised the tax to 8% in 2029, and added a stack of new criminal penalties. The General Assembly rejected the substitute, with the Senate voting 21-18 against it, and sent the original bill back to her desk unchanged. That left her with a straight-up-or-down call by the May 23 deadline.
The criminal penalties were the dealbreaker
For the Democrats who built the bill, the new criminal charges in Spanberger’s substitute were a nonstarter. The governor’s version would have made it a Class 2 felony to transport 50 pounds or more of cannabis into Virginia with intent to distribute, a charge that carries 20 years to life in prison. It also would have turned the $25 civil fine for public consumption into a Class 4 misdemeanor and added a mandatory minimum fine for possession by anyone under 21.
Aird didn’t mince words about that part. She called the substitute “a de facto veto” because it departed so far from what lawmakers passed, and drew a hard line on the penalties, telling Virginia Scope that any version treating cannabis with consequences close to first-degree murder was never going to fly. For a party that has consistently framed legalization as a way to undo the racial damage of the War on Drugs, writing new felonies into the legalization bill defeated the point.
Krizek and Aird put out a joint statement that put the blame squarely on the governor.
“The governor’s veto ignores the reality that cannabis is already being sold everyday across Virginia. The only question is whether we as leaders will finally ensure those sales occur within a legal, regulated market or continue turning a blind eye to a booming illicit market while pretending to be outraged by its existence.”
Del. Paul Krizek and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, in a joint statement
Who wanted the veto
The cannabis bill had enemies outside the Capitol. Virginia’s hemp industry, which sells hemp-derived THC products in smoke shops and stores across the state, saw the legislation as a threat to its existence. A coalition of hemp operators, which MJBizDaily reported included national alcohol retailer Total Wine & Spirits, formally asked Spanberger to veto the bill in a May 14 letter. Total Wine has leaned into hemp-derived THC drinks and edibles, and a regulated cannabis market would have cut into that business.
That puts the veto at the intersection of two fights playing out across the country: the turf war between state-legal cannabis and the booming hemp-THC market, and the alcohol industry’s growing interest in protecting its shelf space from both.
What happens now
The Democratic majority in the General Assembly isn’t big enough to override the veto. That means the next real shot at a sales bill comes in the 2027 legislative session, which pushes a realistic launch date to 2028 at the earliest, more than seven years after Virginia became the first Southern state to legalize possession.
There’s one slim alternative. A sales framework could still move through the state budget process, where the revenue projections give it some leverage. The budget deadline is July 1.
In the meantime, Virginia stays exactly where it’s been since 2021. Adults can possess up to an ounce, grow up to four plants at home, and gift cannabis to each other. What they can’t do is buy it legally, unless they qualify for the medical program run by the state’s five vertically integrated operators, or drive to Maryland. Medical sales in Virginia stand at $59.3 million in 2026, according to the state Cannabis Control Authority. The illicit market that lawmakers keep warning about handles the rest, untaxed and untested.
The politics here run deeper than cannabis. Spanberger’s veto landed as part of a broader power struggle with the General Assembly, and observers read it less as the death of legalization than as a new governor flexing against her own party’s legislature. Either way, the result on the ground is the same. Virginians wait, the unregulated market keeps selling, and the tax revenue keeps flowing somewhere other than the Commonwealth.
