what happens when marijuana possession and homegrow are legalized but sales have not been regulated it could create an ideal environment for the black market to thrive at least this is what some lawmakers in virginia believe and claim its already happening in april 2021 virginia became the first state in the south to legalize adultuse cannabis when lawmakers approved cannabis bills sb 1406 and hb 2312 proposed by governor ralph northam d about a year and a half later its become obvious that without regulated sales illegal sales are booming reports news channel 11 what now there’s no backing down it seems delegate terry g kilgore rgate city the majority leader in the virginia house told the news channel that they need to work out a resolution “we’re going to have to try to work together to try to come up with a solution to try to move forward in a way that would help us make sure that we know where this marijuana is coming from from seed to sale” kilgore said kilgore’s move to address the issue follows the introduction of a proposal by a gop regulator under which a commercial market would kick off in 2024 keith hodges rgloucester bill seeks to amend regulatory provisions that were a part of the cannabis legislation signed by gov northam in 2021 even though hodges hb 1464 represents a step toward launching recreational sales certain provisions of the measure are coming under scrutiny by cannabis advocates those include the elimination of social equity elements removing languages demanding multilicense holders present their plan for promoting diversity and equity and deleting provisions requiring 20 of tax revenue to be allocated to the cannabis equity reinvestment fund although not everyone in the cannabis camp agrees for example jm pedini normls development director praised hodges proposal this is a smart bill carefully constructed by delegate hodges for the best chance of success in the republicancontrolled house of delegates pedini said it seems that having any kind of sales regulations is better than having none what about the neighboring tennessee according to the news report law enforcement is dealing with quite a different set of challenges criminal justice professor eric stanton noted that his contacts have not necessarily found more people possessing cannabis but rather theyre seeing more people in possession of weed and other drugs as well as weapons which is illegal under federal law “say somebody from tennessee who is you know legal to carry a handgun weapon whatever they want to and they go over into virginia” stanton said “regardless if they have that weapon on them or not buy marijuana legally and then bring it back and then pick back up their weapons start carrying it rep scotty campbell rmountain city told the news channel that it would be better if the state followed federal policy around marijuana “i don’t know how much we should be talking about marijuana in tennessee and virginia as long as it’s a schedule one drug which is the same as heroin nationwide which applies to tennessee virginia and beyond” said campbell stanton on the other hand believes that marijuana legalization in tennessee is not a question of if but when in december tennessee regulators announced their plan to file new legislation to legalize recreational marijuana rep bob freeman dnashville is behind the effort alongside state sen heidi campbell dnashville “it’s a full legalization of cannabis across the state” freeman said campbell pointed out that tennessee needs to stop missing out on tax revenue from cannabis sales “let’s not delude ourselves that people aren’t crossing the border and getting cannabis from other states of course they are” campbell said “so that’s just income we’re missing out on” meanwhile tennessee is investing in its hemp market in june of last year the hemp alliance of tennessee partnered with the department of agriculture on a study to examine the feasibility of hemp fiber production for the automotive industry and other sectors of the economy the us department of agriculture recently granted 5 million to support the development of the hemp industry in tennessee photo benzinga edit with images by ekaterina bolovtsova on pexels mwewering and peterpike on pixabay