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Short answer: No. Long answer: It’s complicated.

Virginia does not have a progressive reputation when it comes to marijuana policy reform. Whereas most states have seen the number of arrests for marijuana-related crimes decline over the past decade, Virginia’s rate has increased 76 percent over the same period. The racial disparity of those arrested has widened since 2003, with arrests of black Virginians rising to three times that of whites by 2013 despite similar rates of use. While the state legislature recently passed laws designed to make it easier for patients to obtain and use CBD oil to treat epilepsy, they have simultaneously rebuffed efforts to decriminalize the use and possession of marijuana, even though nearly 80 percent of Virginians favor such a move.

Virginia policymakers were not always so reluctant to experiment with marijuana policy reform. In 1979, Governor John Dalton signed into law a provision that allows physicians to prescribe marijuana as a treatment for cancer and glaucoma. The same law prohibits prosecution of patients, doctors, or pharmacists for the possession or distribution of marijuana for documented medical purposes.

§ 18.2-251.1. Possession or distribution of marijuana for medical purposes permitted. A. No person shall be prosecuted under § 18.2-250 or § 18.2-250.1 for the possession of marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinol when that possession occurs pursuant to a valid prescription issued by a medical doctor in the course of his professional practice for treatment of cancer or glaucoma. B. No medical doctor shall be prosecuted under § 18.2-248 or § 18.2-248.1 for dispensing or distributing marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinol for medical purposes when such action occurs in the course of his professional practice for treatment of cancer or glaucoma. C. No pharmacist shall be prosecuted under §§ 18.2-248 to 18.2-248.1 for dispensing or distributing marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinol to any person who holds a valid prescription of a medical doctor for such substance issued in the course of such doctor’s professional practice for treatment of cancer or glaucoma.1979, c. 435.

So why isn’t Virginia cited as a pioneer of medical marijuana reform? Semantics ultimately neutered the law. The legislature used the term “prescribe,” and because prescribing drugs categorized as Schedule I (like marijuana), was (and remains) illegal, physicians would have risked federal charges and revocation of their medical licenses. Modern medical marijuana laws skirt this issue by using the term “recommend” in place of “prescribe.” Thus the law has remained on the books, unnoticed and largely undisturbed save for one failed attempt to repeal it in the late 1990s.

Yet changes are afoot that might alter the status quo. The DEA has been deliberating rescheduling marijuana to better align the federal classification with the nationwide movement towards reform. Unlike Schedule I drugs, there are pathways to prescribe drugs classified as Schedule II and below. Could Virginia’s medical marijuana law therefore immediately go into effect in the event of rescheduling?

Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Services William Hazel, Jr. believes that rescheduling would have little effect on how the drug is treated in Virginia. “While the criminal code appears to make it legal for a practitioner to prescribe marijuana,” Secretary Hazel said, “there is no enabling law in the Drug Control Act to schedule the drug or to authorize its manufacturing or dispensing.” According to Secretary Hazel, the provision allowing for prescribing marijuana is effectively superseded by other provisions in Virginia’s Drug Control Act. “Even if the federal government acts to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II, its status in Virginia would not change unless the General Assembly enacted legislation to amend the Drug Control Act.”

State Senator Adam Ebbin, a leading proponent of reforming Virginia’s marijuana laws, agrees that the dormant law will remain effectively inert without legislative action. “My understanding is that the federal rescheduling of marijuana would not affect its legality in Virginia because marijuana is not listed as a ‘controlled substance’ [in Virginia], but its possession is explicitly illegal in its own right, and thus not dependent on the federal schedule.”

However, the potential for confusion remains because the part of the Virginia code that makes marijuana explicitly illegal includes language similar to that of the medical marijuana law: “It is unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess marijuana unless the substance was obtained directly from, or pursuant to, a valid prescription or order of a practitioner while acting in the course of his professional practice…” Some may interpret this language as permitting possession of marijuana so long as it is accompanied by valid medical documentation. Federal rescheduling of marijuana could therefore provide the legal breathing-room for physicians in Virginia to prescribe marijuana to their patients.

John Hudak of the Brookings Institution believes that complex layers of state and federal policy would impede implementation of the Virginia provision, even under a generous interpretation of the legal statutes. “[Prescribing marijuana] would remain illegal under federal law, even at Schedule II, except for pharmaceuticals that are approved by the federal government.” Hudak also notes that current medical marijuana programs remain prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act and have only been allowed to continue operations by adhering to a minimum regulatory framework as outlined by the Department of Justice. Virginia lacks any such regulatory framework and thus would invite federal scrutiny.

However, Hudak agrees that the 1979 provision may create a gray area of legal interpretation that could be exploited. If rescheduling proceeds, Hudak suggests, some physicians might feel sufficiently protected by the law to begin “recommending” marijuana for the treatment of cancer or glaucoma. So long as they are neither possessing nor distributing marijuana, these physicians might argue, they would be acting within the law and their professional guidelines. Whether the argument would be successful is a matter of debate, and Hudak notes that physicians are generally unwilling to take actions that might risk their license to practice medicine.

As the movement to reform marijuana laws in the United States accelerates, the issues arising from conflicts between state and federal policies will become harder to ignore and more crucial to resolve. This obscure law from 1979 may not result in medical marijuana becoming legal overnight in Virginia, but it demonstrates why policymakers must work to provide clarity as long-held assumptions surrounding marijuana policy become further estranged from reality.

UPDATE: Dratted DEA makes this article significantly less entertaining…