Building a community-focused cannabis market is answer to vape shop problem | Guest column

Date: 12/2/2025
Publication: Richmond Times Dispatch

f a product is legal to own, popular and relatively easy to obtain, you can bet that a community of sellers will spring up to serve that market and give consumers what they want.

Such is the case with cannabis in Virginia. But Virginia consumers without a medical card still can’t purchase marijuana legally. That is what is driving Richmond’s rapid growth of vape shops that sell cannabis illegally, and the problems that go with them.

Pretending this consumer demand doesn’t exist, or using old, discredited tools to try to tamp it down, are both doomed to failure. Instead, we should be focusing on building a legal market that meets consumer demand, using proven civil enforcement tools to increase compliance, and increasing public health education so consumers understand their safe, healthy and legal options.

Virginia is repeating the mistake New York made years earlier and seeing similar results. Four years after Virginia made possession of cannabis legal, the General Assembly has yet to create a legal system for businesses to sell cannabis for recreational adult use. That’s why we see the growth in vape shops, which provide consumers with affordable, local options for purchasing cannabis, filling the same role as the old underground market.

To drive that market out of business requires a strong legal market that can compete for — and win — consumer loyalty by delivering on price, quality and convenience. The legal market must be competitive so that prices stay low, robust so that there are enough stores in neighborhoods to serve consumers where they are, and well-regulated so that consumers can trust their products will be safe and effective.

Other states have learned this the hard way. In California and Nevada, many consumers have never transitioned to the legal market because it cannot compete with illegal sellers on price and convenience. In both states, high tax burdens have made it difficult for legal operators to offer their products affordably. New federal restrictions on hemp products will also shut down one of the few existing legal options for cannabis-related products, driving more consumers underground. On the East Coast, Virginia businesses would also have to compete with neighboring states that have functional legal markets, like Maryland.

That’s also why it would be a mistake for Virginia to hand licenses to the state’s existing corporate-owned medical dispensary operators, a shortcut that has been proposed before. These corporations would establish a stagnant monopoly that cannot hope to lure consumers away from the vape shops and other underground sellers. And it would cut local small businesses out of the new legal cannabis industry, funneling profits to out-of-state shareholders. That’s counter to the state’s clear plan of using legalization to repair harms suffered by communities in the "war on drugs."

In the meantime, vape shops selling weed under the table illegally are also not an answer. Cities like Richmond are right to try to be concerned and to adopt restrictions. But relying only on drug-bust-style criminal raids risks replicating all the injustices of the war on drugs, which fell heavily on the Black community. Plus, it doesn't work. As the Times-Dispatch coverage noted, many of these stores open right back up the day after a police raid.

Instead, cities need to think about regulating the cannabis market just as they regulate other markets for legal products. We don’t send police with guns drawn into bars that fail to card minors. Instead, we create strong civil enforcement procedures and education campaigns that also allow the market to meet consumer demand.

That’s what New York City did when facing a similar crisis of illegal weed sales at neighborhood convenience stores, while that state’s legal market was also delayed. The city fined store operators $10,000, padlocked offending stores, and threatened landlords with even bigger fines if they didn’t evict illegal operations. The city was able to shut down hundreds of operations, and even a city council critic admitted the moves “put a dent in the illegal market” and “helped the legal market.”

But none of that will work unless we also meet consumer demand, which isn’t going away. Right now, adults in Virginia without a medical card can legally grow up to four cannabis plants at home and share up to one ounce with other adults. Many find that four plants leave them plenty to share, and legally sanctioned cannabis spaces that allow for sharing and consumption should be encouraged as we wait for the legal market to take shape.

Richmond leaders are already exploring some of these civil enforcement tools in their efforts to regulate illegal sales. Both cities and states should expand these explorations as well as public education that's needed sooner rather than later. Ultimately, the commonwealth needs to get to work on building a robust, competitive, consumer-driven, community-owned legal market. It’s what the people want.