04/13/2023
Long post 🚨 alert...it is now time to digest and reflect on yesterday’s SB903 and HB2294 drama. In full disclosure I am extremely proud to say that as well as the founder here at Flower For The People, I am also the President of the . We are an industry group that is made up of 10 Virginia h**p organizations, attempting to help the state create an equitable, safe, and regulated adult use cannabis marketplace to include Virginia small business owners.
For the past few weeks, we have been out on an island on this topic of either accepting or voting down the Governors amendment in the form of a substitute. We have asked the supporters of the Virginia H**p industry to vote YES to this amendment, because, while we knew that it would cut one arm off of the industry, it, at least, would not cut off both legs and one arm like the original bill intended. Over the last few weeks, there has been an exorbitant amount of misinformation and misguided thought outcomes presented by various trade groups and industry experts. These organizations all have their hearts in the right place and do an amazing job garnering support for cultivating this plant that we all know and love. Unfortunately, they fell short on this topic. A simple Google search would lead any critical thinker to multiple sources of Virginia constitutional law that explained this process in black-and-white. There was no gray area… This was a binary choice…either accept the governor’s amendment in the form of a substitute so that we do not lose our livelihoods overnight, or encourage legislators to vote NO so that the governor goes back and very willingly signs his original bill (which was his bill that he wanted to see on Day 1 of this year’s session) period, end of story, full stop. What we, as an industry, got yesterday was simply the lesser of two evils and because of it, my organic h**p farm can continue to operate this morning.
I'd also like to address the elephant in room (continued in comments)…