Is Cannabis Legal in West Virginia?

Cannabis is legal in the state of West Virginia for medical use but illegal for recreational use. From 2010 to 2015 different bills were tabled for the legalization of Medical cannabis without much success.  Eventually, Senate Bill 386 legalizing medical marijuana for specified chronic medical conditions was passed in 2017 and signed into law by Governor Justice on April 19, 2017. This bill was effected in July 2018.

The debilitating conditions that qualify one for a medical marijuana card in West Virginia include:

• Chronic, severe, or intractable pain with neuropathic origin
• Terminal Illness (“defined as a medical prognosis of life expectancy of approximately one (1) year or less if the illness runs its normal course”)

Is recreational marijuana likely to be legalized any time soon?

Though West Virginia still holds a hard stance against the legalization of recreational cannabis, several strong winds might lead to this happening sooner than later. One such incident is the passing of the MORE Act, a bill seeking to reschedule marijuana and tax its sales.

The MORE act (Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement) was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives proposing to end the government prohibition on marijuana at a federal level by taking it out of the list of controlled substances that have been banned. Such moves mean that it is only a matter of time before states like West Virginia legalize the recreational use of cannabis.