In budget language unveiled Sunday, Virginia legislative leaders would create a brand new legal misdemeanor for possession of greater than 4 ounces of hashish, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reviews. It’s the third time this 12 months that state lawmakers have thought-about creating new legal guidelines for hashish possession regardless of passing a legalization invoice in April 2021.
The funds compromise is backed by Home Appropriations Chairman Barry Knight (R) and Senate Finance and Appropriations Chair Janet Howell (D). The modification would create a brand new legislation criminalizing public hashish possession of greater than 4 ounces and cost them with a category three legal misdemeanor and potential fines as much as $500. Second or subsequent offenses can be a category two misdemeanor, punishable by as much as six months in jail and a advantageous of as much as $1,000, the report says.
The state’s legalization legislation permits for possession of as much as an oz. for private use and the house cultivation of as much as 4 crops. Possession of something greater than an oz. as much as a pound is punishable by a $25 civil penalty, with possession of greater than a pound being a felony.
In an electronic mail despatched to lawmakers on Sunday, Chelsea Higgs Clever, government director of the group Marijuana Justice Virginia, urged lawmakers to “cease discovering extra methods to criminalize Virginians.”
“Virginia officers should not enable the funds doc to turn out to be a legislative workaround to implement the desire of the administration on the exclusion of the voice and can of the folks,” she wrote within the letter, based on the Instances-Dispatch.
Legalization is opposed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who was elected after the reform invoice was accepted however earlier than the trade was arrange. He supported laws to create new crimes for hashish possession however they weren’t enacted by the Legislature.
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