Comments Document

Attached is a letter of support for the VA Cannabis Oversight Commission that includes public health-centered recommendations based on personal and aggregated research.

I am very glad you are working to get the legal retail market set up. It is essential for safe use by the Virginia Citizens. Thank you all for your work on this. I am wondering what is happening with HSA 1. We never were able to have a dispensary in our area. It seems that our HSA is not being addressed adequately. Any remarks about that?

Good afternoon members of the commission. My name is Kendall Bazemore, I am a permaculture designer and apprentice urban farmer working with Slade Farms, in Surry, Virginia. I'm a also a member of the Mid-Atlantic Black Farmer Caucus. I am here today to introduce myself because we are interested in becoming a cannabis grower, and I would like to provide insight from the perspective of a farmer. I believe that it is important to have our perspective in these conversations so that farmers' needs are directly represented. I look forward to attending these meetings and if you have any questions, please let me know. Thank you for your time.

My name is Meredith McGee, MPH. I’m a public health researcher at Yale University and a Junior Public Health Fellow at Parabola Center, where my work focuses on mental health, substance use, and the role cannabis policy plays in shaping public health outcomes. I’m writing to emphasize the importance of incorporating a public health lens into Virginia’s cannabis oversight process, particularly when it comes to decisions regarding who is in the market, the types of products available, and how they’re regulated, labeled, and communicated to the public. We’ve seen what happens when drug markets move forward without public health protections in place. Alcohol and tobacco give us plenty of lessons: inconsistent standards, poor labeling, limited consumer education, and harms that fall hardest on the most marginalized communities. Virginia has a chance to do things differently and smarter. Public health can help us focus on the real questions: How do we keep people safe? How do we reduce avoidable harms? How do we make sure this system works for the communities most impacted? Public health isn’t anti-cannabis; it’s focused on people. It helps us find the right balance between under-regulation and over-regulation. With the right guardrails, Virginia can build a cannabis system that supports safety, access, and long-term community wellbeing. That means things like thoughtful product regulation, clear testing and labeling standards, and education that actually helps people make informed choices. It also means building systems that can track real-time data on usage, access, and outcomes, so you can adjust as needed. These are practical tools to strengthen the market, build public trust, and ensure this system works for the long term. There are already organizations doing this work—including the CannaJustice Coalition, who I’m proud to support in offering comments today. I also want to offer myself as a continued resource. I’m happy to share national best practices, connect you with other experts, or provide tools to help make sure public health is meaningfully integrated into your policy work. I’d also be glad to share a recording of a recent panel I moderated that focused on how states can apply public health principles to cannabis regulation in practice. Thank you for your work and for making space for voices like mine to support a system that serves Virginia communities now and in the long term.

We believe that avoidance of a responsibly regulated recreational resale model is fueling the unsafe and unsupervised distribution of Marijuana throughout the Commonwealth. We've legalized recreational consumption of a product without providing a safe route for our consumers to legally do so which has resulted in illegal pop up events as well as illegal importation from other surrounding legal markets as close as our nation's Capitol. It's time to be responsible and utilize the resources already provided to the Cannabis Control Authority to serve its intent and Purpose, otherwise the funding they have received over the past two sessions is for naught. Always available for tours and education, for those who wish to learn, USDA/VADACS farm operator William Eric Callaway Registered as Responsible Authority for High Meadows Hemp Farm, an agricultural education and event center located in Powhatan VA 229 375 1934 ecallaway68@msn.com