Virginia Ham

Youngkin puts himself before his people.

Daily Recap

As they did last year, Virginia legislators passed a bill to legalize retail cannabis sales this session—and as he did last year, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has vetoed it.

Youngkin, who officially rejected the bill on Monday, argued in a veto statement that the legislation “endangers Virginians’ health and safety,” without acknowledging that his actions have allowed his state to slip deeper into the unregulated chasm between decriminalization and legalization, where bad things can happen to good people.

In the twelve months since his last veto, the only certainty is that Mexican cartels and Chinese gangs have benefited from $3.5 billion in untaxed, unregulated cannabis sales while the proliferation of hemp-based THC products has skyrocketed.

Virginia is emulating two states that had a rocky roll-out—but even Cali and New York eventually legalized retail sales. Virginia, with legal weed and no legal sales network, is a petrie dish of untested products that consumers will continue to consume.

microbe-infested street weed available in Virginia 👈

🎯-HIGH-🎯

Ohio’s Republican governor is now pushing to reallocate revenue generated from cannabis taxes to support police training, local jails and behavioral health services.

Yet, local governments in Ohio are “unequivocally opposed” to lawmaker-proposed changes to marijuana tax revenue allocations approved by voters in 2023.

Municipalities that host dispensaries are expected under current law to divide roughly $22M in fiscal year 2025. That’s assuming Ohio hits it’s revenue 🎯 of $62M overall.

Turtle Girdle

Maryland’s adult-use cannabis sales provided $73M in state revenue in 2024 from a 9% sales-and-use tax, but elected officials are planning to draw more cash from the industry moving forward.

Gov. Wes Moore and leaders in the state’s General Assembly announced that they will increasing the canna tax from 9% to 12%—a 33% hike at adult-use retail. This increase could go into effect on July 1, 2025.

Traffic Stops

Federal cannabis drug trafficking cases are continuing to fall steadily in the era of state-level legalization, a new report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows.

In 2024, there were roughly 500 federal cannabis trafficking cases, according to the report. That’s down from nearly 3,500 in 2015 and approximately 5,000 in 2013.

Stocks & Stuff

It was a new day with a fresh all-time low for U.S. cannabis ETF MSOS and most of the underlying holdings—because the ETF is a reflection of the holdings. The 3% loss brings the YTD damage to -33% as the end of the first quarter approaches.

Below, we’ll endure another Groundhog Day and explore ways to flip that script and stop this seemingly endless simulation, and chart check Q125, which has thus far been the mirror image of Q124.

All that and more, just scroll down.

SPY 0.00%↑ QQQ 0.00%↑ IWM 0.00%↑ MSOS 0.00%↑ ETF Notional: $7M

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