Republican lawmakers in Virginia want to cut nearly 70% of the Cannabis Control Authority’s budget, a move that creates further uncertainty for the state’s nascent legal marijuana industry.
Under a state spending plan proposed by Virginia’s House Republicans, the budget for the Cannabis Control Authority (CCA) would be slashed by $13.4 million over two years, Richmond TV station WRIC reported Wednesday.
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The budget proposal comes after a Republican-controlled state General Assembly committee killed a bill intended to regulate the state’s impending adult-use marijuana industry.
Virginia has had a limited medical marijuana market since 2020, and adult-use sales were to begin Jan. 1, 2024, under a legalization bill signed into law in 2021 by the state’s former governor, a Democrat.
But new Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, appears more focused on regulating products containing intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC than implementing a recreational market.
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