West Virginia’s state treasurer is done waiting. Treasurer Larry Pack announced this week that his office has begun distributing nearly $40 million in cannabis-related revenue that has been sitting unspent since 2021 — funds earmarked by law for medical research and public health priorities that state officials simply refused to touch for five years.
The announcement comes despite — not because of — action from the Governor’s office. Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey recently vetoed legislation that would have compelled state officials to release the funds, arguing that the money should be held in reserve for unspecified future needs. That veto didn’t stop Pack. The treasurer’s office is moving forward anyway, citing what was true all along: allocating the money is required under existing state law. No new bill needed. They just had to decide to follow it.
That’s the part worth sitting with. For five years, West Virginia collected taxes and fees from a medical cannabis program serving more than 30,000 registered patients — then held the money hostage using procedural pretexts. The stated excuse until now? Cannabis remains a Schedule I substance under federal law, so the state claimed it couldn’t touch the revenue. That argument collapsed under scrutiny, as it should have. Dozens of states collect and spend cannabis tax revenue without waiting for federal permission. West Virginia simply didn’t want to, and dressed that choice up in legal language until it became embarrassing enough to stop.
Watch for how the $40 million actually gets distributed. The law directs funds toward research and public health priorities, but the devil is in the disbursement details — who controls the allocation process, which agencies get access, and whether any of it finds its way to the communities most affected by cannabis enforcement. With a governor who opposed releasing the funds at all, the implementation phase deserves as much scrutiny as the announcement. The fight over this money isn’t over; it’s just moved from whether to spend it to who decides how.
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