“We support the emergence of a recreational adult-use market, but not at the cost of small mom-and-pop businesses that started in hemp.”
By Barbara Biddle, Cannabis Small Business Association
For more than eight years, I have built my business one customer at a time, pouring in my savings, my time and countless sacrifices to create something that supports my family, employs Virginians and strengthens our local economy. This week, I learned that much of it is likely to become illegal on August 15.
Virginia’s new marijuana compromise, announced this week, sets recreational sales to begin in July 2027 and eliminates what state leaders call the “25-to-1 hemp loophole.” At first glance, the change looks technical—a new definition of hemp. In reality, it renders roughly 80 percent of the products currently legal in Virginia illegal overnight.
For hundreds of small businesses and the thousands of people they employ, that is not a minor amendment. It is an extinction event with a date attached.
Here is the part that should give every Virginian pause. Hemp products with more than two milligrams of THC become illegal on August 15, 2026. But the legal retail marijuana market does not open until July 2027. That
Read full article on Marijuana Moment
