Virginia AG Steps Up Enforcement on Hemp THC and Kratom

Virginia is building a dedicated state operation to police the fast-growing trade in hemp-derived THC, kratom, and other intoxicating products sold outside its licensed dispensaries, and it is putting the attorney general’s office in charge.

Attorney General Jay Jones announced the Regulated Products Enforcement Unit on July 30, 2026, pulling several scattered oversight duties into one team. The unit will handle civil enforcement, retail compliance, product-directory administration, and public education as new intoxicating products reach convenience-store and vape-shop shelves faster than any single agency has tracked them.

Inspectors assigned to the unit will monitor retailers, run compliance checks, and coordinate with the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority and other states. When a business breaks state law, the office can seek civil penalties and pursue other legal action against manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. Jones argued that most sellers want to follow the rules but that the sheer volume of new products demands a more focused effort.

He tied the launch to products engineered to slip past both regulators and parents. “New intoxicating products and substances enter the market every single day, many of which include dangerous or illegal ingredients and are deceptively packaged, labeled, and marketed to consumers,” Jones said in a statement. “Many of these products even target children, causing irreparable harm to their lives and their futures.”

What the unit will oversee

The unit’s most concrete task is running Virginia’s directory of liquid-nicotine and vapor products. Under state law, those products cannot be sold unless they appear on the list, and manufacturers must submit certifications showing they meet state and federal requirements. The team will review those applications, decide which products qualify, watch for shifts in their federal regulatory status, and push retailers to clear unauthorized items off their shelves.

For hemp-derived THC and kratom, the unit becomes the state’s civil-enforcement arm rather than a criminal one. It will rely on inspections, compliance checks, and coordinated action with other agencies to force problem sellers into line, escalating to civil penalties for repeat or systemic violations. The office has not yet said how many staff the unit will have or whether it will carry its own budget.

The laws behind the unit

The office is not inventing this authority. It is carrying out a group of consumer-protection laws that Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly passed in 2026 and Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed. The Vape Enforcement Act broadened the attorney general’s power to police nicotine vapor products and gave the office new money to maintain the product registry and run inspections.

A separate law overhauled how kratom can be sold. It bars sales to anyone under 21, requires ingredient labeling and a dependence warning, and mandates that products sit behind the counter or in a locked case. It also bans synthetic and semisynthetic kratom compounds, products meant for vaping or injection, and packaging pitched to children, and it caps how much 7-hydroxymitragynine, the concentrated compound known as 7-OH, a product may contain. Derived from a Southeast Asian tree, kratom acts as a mild stimulant at low doses and produces opioid-like effects at higher ones, which is why concentrated 7-OH has drawn growing scrutiny from state and federal regulators.

Why Virginia is acting now

Enforcement of the state’s existing limits has been uneven. In 2024, state agriculture inspectors found violations at 82% of the retailers they checked, and THC drinks and other products above Virginia’s potency caps kept turning up online and in stores.

The push also marks a change in posture. Jones, a Democrat who unseated Republican incumbent Jason Miyares in November 2025, has moved the office toward more active consumer-protection enforcement. Under Miyares, Virginia had declined to join a coalition of 25 state attorneys general that pressed the online platform Shopify (SHOP ) to stop serving websites selling illegal vapes. The new unit also lands as Virginia expands its oversight ahead of adult-use retail sales set to begin in 2027, with cannabis regulators still writing the rules and hemp-derived THC caught in an unresolved federal fight over how to treat the products.

Virginia is not alone in scrambling to keep up. Pennsylvania created an attorney-general-run nicotine directory and can begin seizing unlisted products in October 2026; California has run inspection sweeps across thousands of hemp and kratom sellers; and Alabama took a harder line in June 2026, executing dozens of search warrants and seizing roughly 123,000 doses of kratom products. Kratom-industry advocates have generally welcomed action against chemically concentrated 7-OH products while urging regulators to separate those from natural kratom leaf that many adults use without incident.

How aggressively Virginia’s unit moves will depend on staffing and money the office has not yet detailed, and on whether centralizing the work in one team finally closes the gap between what the law says and what sits on the shelf.