Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed two top Democratic legislative priorities on Thursday: bills that would have allowed the recreational retail salesof marijuana to begin next year and measures mandating a minimum wage increase.
The development, which drew criticism from Democrats who control the General Assembly, did not come as a surprise. While Youngkin had not explicitly threatened to veto either set of bills, he told reporters he didn’t think the minimum wage legislation was needed and had repeatedly said he was uninterested in setting up retail marijuana sales.
In 2021, Virginia became the first Southern state to legalize marijuana, adopting a policy change that allowed adults age 21 and up to possess and cultivate the drug. But the state didn’t set up retail sales at the time and still hasn’t, due to shifts in partisan power and policy differences since then.
Man, I hate it when politicians represent the will of the people.
The weird thing about it is this only helps criminals. They already have legal weed, so the only crime is how it is sold. If you make legal retail sales, then you give money to corporations (Republicans like that, right?) and also get sweet sweet tax revenue from it (Republicans also like getting money to pay for more police and military equipment for them, right?). This is a weird mix of not getting revenue to pay for stopping crime while also encouraging crime to happen.