GROWING YOUR OWN

On July 1, 2021, Virginia will allow residents to grow and harvest their own Cannabis.

Again, retail sales won’t begin until 2024, so for the next three years, the only legal way to obtain the drug will be growing your own or getting it as “a gift” from someone who does. The law allows people to cultivate up to 4 plants per household, provided they aren’t visible from a public street and precautions are taken to prevent unauthorized access by minors – though the bill doesn’t specify what those precautions should entail.

The law requires each plant to be tagged with the grower’s name, driver’s license or state identification number, and a notation that it is being grown for personal use. People caught with more plants than legally allowed face escalating penalties, which rise from a $250 fine for possessing between 4 to 10 plants to felony charges for more than 50.

Like the open-container rules, the home grow provisions present some ambiguities. First, there’s no legal way to purchase seeds or cutting, though they could be gifted under the law.

Second, the prospect of growing up to 4 plants is at odds with the possession limit of one ounce. The language limiting possession to one ounce applies only to amounts held on someone’s person or in public. The legislative intent is to prohibit you from walking down the street with more than an ounce of it.