VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate said marijuana is largely to blame for shooting violence in the city. Now, one state senator is renewing the call for a legal retail marijuana market.
In an exclusive interview with 13News Now last week, the police chief said 90% of the city's violent crime is fueled by marijuana.
"Where you may think it will be heroin, you may think it will be cocaine, methamphetamine, nope. It's marijuana. We have young men losing their lives in this community today over 200 dollars' worth of marijuana," he said. "Marijuana drives a lot of my shooting violence, it drives a lot of my robbery violence, and it drives a lot of my homicide violence."
It’s a statistic that prompted State Sen. Aaron Rouse (D-Virginia Beach) to respond on X, renewing calls for a legal retail marijuana market in Virginia. He said not creating it "is a threat to public safety."
Virginia became the first Southern state to legalize marijuana in 2021, allowing people ages 21 and up to possess small amounts of the drug. However, the state has never allowed the sale of the drug.
"When you have a structured market where you can regulate, you can enforce, you can tax cannabis sales, what that does is drive out the black market," Rouse said.
The Democratic senator sponsored a bipartisan bill to regulate marijuana sales, which made it all the way to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk.
"Our young people are killing each other over something where we could have attempted to mitigate those interactions by regulating marijuana and cannabis sales," Rouse said. "What it did attempt to do is get rid of the gray area when it comes to regulating, enforcing and taxing marijuana while trying to provide revenues for our state — we could put that towards transportation, we can put that towards these tolls, we can put it towards education."
Youngkin ultimately vetoed that bill. Shortly after the veto, the governor told 13News Now in an interview he believes cannabis is bad for Virginia.
"We see across other states that have retail markets for a while, a massive increase in adolescent usage, massive increase in child poisonings, and what that results from is an accessibility that is far greater than it would be otherwise. You couple this with the reality that cannabis today is so strong, and it’s causing severe mental illness, especially in adolescent users. Cannabis use disorder is so prominent, the incidents of psychosis are going through the roof, it’s terrible for children and adolescents," he said at the time.
In a statement Monday, his press secretary Christian Martinez said the governor stands by his decision to veto the bill saying, "Instead of following the failed paths of other states and endangering Virginians’ health and safety, Governor Youngkin will continue to address the inconsistencies in enforcement and regulation in Virginia’s current laws which don’t justify expanding access to cannabis Efforts by other states to regulate the black-market for cannabis have largely failed because legalizing weed does not eliminate the illegal black-market sale of cannabis, ensure product safety, and have fallen short of revenue expectations and forecasts."
It's a stance that Jason Blanchette, president of the Virginia Cannabis Association, disagrees with.
"I think that we would certainly see, and it’s been proven time and time again across the country, that you do see a reduction in black market sales. You do see a reduction in crime. You do see a reduction in gun violence because most people for the extra $5, $7, $10 per purchase, plus maybe some tax added on top, are going to much rather purchase from a reliable source, a source where they know the product has been tested, where they know the product is safe and there are eyeballs all over the actual product," Blanchette said.
He said instead of letting law enforcement agencies deal with the gray area they are left with, something needs to be done.
"Right now, we have 1920s prohibition tactics going on all throughout the city where if we do not have a safe, legal marketplace for marijuana, which is a safe and legal product, according to our state, then we are going to continue to have gun violence, we’re gonna have people that are selling it and willing to take another life over a product that should be in a safe and reliable store," Blanchette said.
Blanchette helped craft the bill Rouse carried through the General Assembly and said despite being struck down at the highest level they've made it before, they will keep pushing.
"Unfortunately, I think until something super catastrophic happens or continues to happen across the state, [Youngkin] is sort of dug in and I don’t think he’s going to change his mind," he said.