Governor Spanberger: Don’t Let Poverty Penalties Undermine Virginia’s Cannabis Promise

Dislcaimer: Original source is Richmond Times Dispatch article found HERE

When Virginia moved to legalize cannabis, the Commonwealth made a commitment to repair past harms and prioritize public health. Yet, as the final budget bill takes shape, a proposed 900% increase in the public consumption fine, from $25 to $250, threatens to abandon that vision. Last week’s compromise made clear that we had lost this important win of racial justice to the administration’s wishes for more enforcement. I urge Governor Spanberger to strike this provision from the budget and commit to revisiting the issue only when transparent, data-driven enforcement metrics are made public.

This drastic hike is not grounded in evidence, nor does it promote public safety. It is a punitive measure that risks recreating the very racist, policing-for-profit dynamics that legalization was intended to dismantle. When the House and Senate sent the retail bill to this administration the public consumption fine was the same as it has been the last 5 years at a low rate of $25 on the first offense. Before legalization, Black Virginians were arrested for marijuana at 3.5 times the rate of white Virginians and convicted at 3.9 times the rate, and in some localities the arrest disparity ran as high as 14 times, despite Black and white Virginians using marijuana at nearly identical rates. Across the nation, disparities remain post-legalization, which is why keeping fines low is critical to not ruin the lives of our most vulnerable.

The rationale provided for this tenfold increase, that the current $25 fine is “ineffective,” is unsubstantiated. There is no public data indicating that the current fine structure is failing. A $250 fine creates a financial incentive to ticket, and it lands hardest in tourist areas like the oceanfront and other public spaces, often the only places our most vulnerable people have to go. When we shift our policy from public health to a revenue-generating punishment model, we are not serving the public interest; we are simply creating a new mechanism for profiling.

We must be clear about who bears the weight of this policy. A $250 fine is a minor inconvenience for the wealthy, but for renters, residents of federal public housing, and those experiencing homelessness, it is a catastrophic economic barrier. The Commonwealth Institute found a strong, statistically significant relationship between the amount of fines and fees assessments per capita and the share of the population that is Black. In 2019, Virginia courts assessed $105 million in fines and fees against Black Virginians, 33% of the state total, despite Black residents being only 19% of the population. By increasing fines without first providing legal, safe consumption spaces, the Commonwealth is establishing a two-tier system: those who own property can consume safely in private, while everyone else is subject to disproportionate targeting, the accumulation of debt, and the looming threat of criminalization by way of any of the over 44,000 collateral consequences that can impact a family’s affordability and livelihood.

This is fundamentally a justice and public safety issue. Historically, public consumption penalties have been disproportionately enforced against Black, brown, and low-income communities. In 2021, Virginia wisely established parity between marijuana consumption and the tobacco Clean Indoor Air Act, with limited exceptions. While both substances produce a nuisance odor, only marijuana penalties include mandated substance use classes for a second offense and criminal misdemeanor charges for a third. Because law enforcement has the most contact with individuals in public housing or those unable to smoke inside rental units, lacking a private residence effectively turns individuals into targets, forcing them through the “prohibition cracks” of a legal state enforcing poverty penalties. Public safety should address the act of smoking itself, rather than the substance; both are legal and neither presents an imminent danger. We urge the Commonwealth to maintain parity between marijuana and tobacco consumption penalties to avoid over-criminalizing one substance over the other.

True legalization should guarantee a non-repetition of disproportionate policing; it does not expand it through unpaid court debt that generates warrants and, in turn, criminal exposure. We are not asking for a lack of regulation; we are asking for policy based on actual data rather than punitive conjecture. Striking this $250 fine does not signal a lack of concern for public nuisance, it signals a commitment to fair, evidence-based governance.

Governor Spanberger, the path toward a just cannabis framework is clear. Strike the 900% increase. Protect vulnerable Virginians from unnecessary criminalization. Wait for the public data. Only then can we have an honest, informed conversation about how to address public consumption in a way that truly serves all residents of our Commonwealth.

Let us ensure that Virginia’s legalization remains a model for repair, not a blueprint for the next generation of the drug war.