The primary column I wrote about authorized weed in Virginia appeared on July 1, 2021, aka Marijuana Freedom Day. That’s the date grownup possession of small quantities of weed, and homegrows of as much as 4 vegetation, turned authorized in Virginia.
Again then, one query on many minds was, “The place can I get seeds?” There was no easy reply, as a result of not like the Nineteen Seventies, when black-market weed was loaded with seeds, most marijuana lately is seedless, which makes for a lot higher-potency weed.
Even after possession turned authorized, promoting leisure weed remained unlawful, because it does right this moment. Gifting a small quantity to a good friend was and is authorized, nevertheless.
One lead to 2021 was large-scale hashish seed giveaways organized by Jonathan Zinski, a hemp farmer in Campbell County. He attracted a throng on Church Avenue downtown with a free-seeds distribution that fall. Few if any Virginia retailers jumped into the seed-selling enterprise then.
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Two years later, the cannabis-seed market is shortly evolving. Tuesday, I plunked down $89 plus tax for a six-pack of feminized seeds at Blue Ridge Hydroponics on Fifth Road within the Outdated Southwest neighborhood.
Behind its entrance counter is a tote the dimensions of a small laundry basket, filled with sealed seed packs. On the counter was a catalog, in a three-ring binder, that listed attributes of the various seed varieties the shop sells. Some are native, by producers comparable to Roanoke-based White Lightning Seeds.
Blue Ridge Hydroponics isn’t the one native retailer providing hashish seeds. Additionally promoting them are Inside Out on Williamson Street; Foster’s Normal Retailer on U.S. 220 north of Rocky Mount; and Groundworks Backyard & Hydroponics Provide on Roanoke Road in Christiansburg.
Thoughts you, these are the shops I checked; hashish seeds are in all probability accessible at different retailers, too.
Usually the packs are supplied as novelties. The six-pack I bought of “Gorilla Glue #4” seeds is labeled “strictly for memento & pressure preservation functions solely.
The worth I paid — $15 per seed — appears somewhat excessive, proper? That’s far more costly than Blue Ridge Hydroponics’ tomato seeds. (The shop’s motto is “Serving to you develop ‘tomatoes’ … and tomatoes since 2004.”)
My chief query was, are they authorized to promote? The reply to that query is determined by who you ask. Once I put it to Roanoke Commonwealth’s Lawyer Don Caldwell, he replied, “Who is aware of?”
State Del. Chris Head, R-Botetourt, mentioned gaps and overlaps between state and federal legal guidelines have left Virginia with a “wild-west” regulatory framework for marijuana.
Virginia regulation doesn’t particularly ban the sale of hashish seeds. Nevertheless it doesn’t particularly authorize gross sales, both. In the meantime, a 2018 federal regulation permits the sale of any hemp product with lower than 0.3% THC. That’s the chief psychoactive cannabinoid in pot.
Zinski, the hemp farmer in Campbell County, additionally serves on the Virginia Hemp Coalition Advisory Board.
“All hashish seeds, by present authorized definition, are thought of [legal] hemp,” Zinski mentioned. “There are not any cannabinoids [such as THC] current in hashish seeds in any respect.” In accordance with him, the shortage of THC is what makes hashish seeds not unlawful.
That’s much like what I heard from Brynnen Beierle, the present proprietor of Blue Ridge Hydroponics. The native Californian grew up within the Los Angeles space however moved right here three years in the past.
She bought the develop store from its former house owners just lately. Earlier than she received into the home-gardening provide enterprise, Beierle, 27, operated private coaching and wellness companies, and he or she additionally tended bar.
“It’s a grey space,” she mentioned. Though vegetation grown from these seeds might in the end comprise loads of THC, the seeds themselves have not one of the substance. “That’s the place the grey space exists. It’s actually only a seed,” Beierle informed me.
I received a distinct reply after I put the “Are seed gross sales authorized?” query to Nick Hagen, a Roanoke legal professional who makes a speciality of hashish regulation.
“The very brief reply is ‘No’ underneath Virginia regulation,” Hagen mentioned. He added: “The query shortly turns into, will someone ever be prosecuted?”
Marijuana (versus non-psychoactive hemp) stays a banned substance underneath federal regulation. However years in the past, after Colorado legalized weed, the U.S. Division of Justice “despatched out a memo saying that, if a state has a well-regulated [cannabis] trade, the DOJ wouldn’t allocate funding for hashish prosecutions,” Hagen mentioned.
And what about state prosecutions? That’s a query for a Virginia prosecutor, Hagen mentioned.
Caldwell, Roanoke’s commonwealth’s legal professional for 44 years, mentioned marijuana circumstances are “not a precedence” for his workplace, until the load of pot seized is “within the kilos.”
And even then, the prosecutor has to have materials lab-tested to make sure it’s not authorized hemp. By look and odor, the 2 are indistinguishable. And proper now, hemp flower gross sales are authorized.
“The regulation is simply so confused, and the testing mechanism so onerous, and the excellence between hemp and marijuana so cloudy, that actually, it’s only a state of confusion in Virginia,” Caldwell mentioned.
Steve Cooper, of Misty Mountain Wares, a head store in Rocky Mount, mentioned he’s not promoting seeds.
“If I used to be certain they had been authorized, I might promote them,” Cooper informed me. “Nevertheless it’s such a grey space proper now, I don’t know.”
Travis Wimmer, proprietor of Inside Out on Williamson Street, mentioned he started promoting seeds final yr. He’s largely out of a $16,000 order he bought in January. However Wimmer mentioned he intends to restock quickly, for the upcoming outside develop season, which kicks off Might 1.
Much like Blue Ridge Hydroponics, Wimmer’s seed costs begin at $25 for a three-pack and vary as much as $100, relying on the variety of seeds, the pressure and its kind.
Feminized seeds are extra fascinating (and expensive) as a result of they produce solely feminine vegetation. That’s the thing of each home-grower, as a result of male vegetation gained’t get anybody excessive.
Worse, the presence of male vegetation will drastically decrease the yield of females, when pollen from a boy plant fertilizes the ladies. That’s why many home-growers search feminized seeds.
Wimmer mentioned the seeds he sells are authorized “due to the [2018] farm invoice,” and since the seeds are hemp merchandise that comprise lower than 0.3% of THC.
Dave Rash, proprietor of Groundworks Backyard & Hydroponics Provide in Christiansburg, mentioned he started promoting hashish seeds a month or two in the past as souvenirs and novelties.
“I can’t show what your intention is as soon as you allow right here,” Rash mentioned. (Over the telephone, I believed I heard him winking.)
Charley Foster, co-owner of Foster’s Normal Retailer close to Rocky Mount, mentioned he’s been promoting seeds for about two months. He carries about 50 completely different strains. Thus far, they’re not promoting significantly briskly, he mentioned.
“They’ve nonetheless received that stigma,” Foster added. Perhaps this column will ship him just a few prospects. He sounded excited on the prospect.
This yr, the Virginia Normal Meeting handed no laws that solutions the seed legality query.
Nor did the legislature take steps towards establishing a regulatory framework for authorized gross sales of leisure marijuana, which was anticipated by the 2021 laws that legalized possession and home-grows.
As a substitute, the Normal Meeting has taken steps within the different path.
One invoice that’s at the moment on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk would limit gross sales of merchandise containing THC isomers, comparable to Delta 8 THC, a product of authorized hemp. If the governor indicators that measure, it can destroy Virginia’s $500 million hemp trade, Zinski informed me.
Given the path of that laws, I requested Foster if he thought state lawmakers may sooner or later outlaw possession or home-grows as soon as once more. He laughed.
“Look what occurred once they had been taking down [Confederate] statues,” Foster mentioned. “These protests had been nothing in comparison with what’ll occur should you inform rednecks they will’t have their weed.”
Contact metro columnist Dan Casey at 981-3423 or dan.casey@roanoke.com. Observe him on Twitter:@dancaseysblog.