WTDW Podcast | Episode 52: What To Do When… You Grow Your Own Weed.

by | Aug 3, 2023 | Audio, Criminal Defense, Media, Scott Cardani, Will Knows Weed, Will Smith, WTDW Podcast

What To Do When... You Grow Your Own Weed.

Weed, Growing Your Own Weed, Sharing Weed with Your Friends, Legal Cannabis.

What To Do When… You Grow Your Own Weed.

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The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, Will Knows Weed, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, the legalization of marijuana in Virginia, divorce 101, Child Support, and others.

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WTDW Podcast | Episode 52: What To Do When… You Grow Your Own Weed.

What To Do When… Intro 00:01
Welcome to What To Do When… A podcast from real lawyers with real perspective, where we explore a variety of legal issues and scenarios. Each week we focus on a new topic and discuss what to do when and if any of these legal scenarios ever happened to you or a loved one. With over 40 years of combined legal experience, our hosts offer their unique perspectives and insights on a range of real life legal situations.

Scott Cardani 0:26

Hey, welcome to another episode of What To To When… A Dummies Guide to the Legal Verse. We’re here at Critzer Cardani in Richmond, Virginia. We have Will Smith with us today one of our associates, what’s on the docket for today Will?

Will Smith III 0:41

What To Do When… You Grow Your Own Weed and How to Share It.

Scott Cardani 0:44
Weed… Will Knows Weed, everybody we’re back to #willknowsweed. So what is that about Will? So, is there a provision that allows you to grow weed, Virginia now? Because that was illegal when I was a kid?

Will Smith III 0:55
It was when I was a kid too.

Scott Cardani 0:57
Sim you’re older than me? Yeah.

Will Smith III 0:59
But you know, as far as you know, what the law says now is that any person can grow up to four plants at their own home with a bunch of restrictions that are in place, obviously.

Scott Cardani 1:08
Okay, so four plants. You’re saying it doesn’t matter how big they are? How small? They’re just four plants?

Will Smith III 1:14
No, yeah, it can be it doesn’t matter if they’re like an infant stage. Or if it’s, you know, full grown, you know, stalk four full plants or all you’re allowed. One thing I guess that people need to know about that, too, is that it’s per household, right? And so it’s, let’s say, you know, you live in a house and you have 10 people in your house, it doesn’t mean that you can grow 40 plants and do it legally. Okay, you’re stuck with 10 plants total.

Scott Cardani 1:36
And that would be no matter if you’re in a rooming house or whatever your own kind of situation is correct.

Will Smith III 1:41
Yes, sir.

Scott Cardani 1:41
That’s interesting. I would have never thought about that. I’m glad you brought that up. Okay, so what’s the what’s the rule that we need to know? What do we need to know about growing our own weed here?

Will Smith III 1:48
Okay, so everyone is in in the state of Virginia, adults over the age of 21 years old, are allowed to grow four plants.

Scott Cardani 1:55
OK, So got that.

Will Smith III 1:56
Those four plants must be not visible publicly, and must be tagged. And so every single one is like, you can just grow them out there and you know, just have kind of like a full garden of them. You have to tag them with information regarding your name, the address, basically, it’s you know, almost the stuff that you’d have on your on your driver’s license. So in the event that, you know, someone, I guess, pulls your stalk out and tries to run away with it, at least it’s tagged in your name.

Scott Cardani 2:25
I don’t even ask about the tag. That sounds so funny. To me, I feel like it’s a luggage tag.

Will Smith III 2:30
And it’s one of those things that I didn’t really think much about, I just figured it’s kind of like any other gardening, if you growing peppers, or tomatoes or something like that. You know that you just kind of put them out there if they’re your seeds out and just kind of let it grow. But you know, at least right now, there are these certain rules in place that allow people to, you know, keep track.

Scott Cardani 2:49
And interesting that it can’t be visible. I mean, it’s funny how Virginia has embraced this weed thing. And we make fun of Will Knows Weed. That doesn’t mean well, it does weed by the way, just so we’re clear on that. But it is it’s he’s dealing with a lot courts, and we’re so we’re trying to get this information out to people. And it’s really interesting how culturally we’re in this place where it’s okay to grow it, but nobody can see it.

Will Smith III 3:11
Yeah, yeah. Out of sight, out of mind kind of thing.

Scott Cardani 3:13
I guess.

Will Smith III 3:14
Yeah. But you know, there are people that are, you know, interested in to know, like, what they can do, and you know, what’s going to happen if they exceed that four plant limit? You know, so I’ve received a lot of questions about it recently. So it’s one of those things that I’ve been, you know, checking up on.

Scott Cardani 3:28
So is there anything else you need to talk about the growing it has to be tagged? It has to be unseen. What else?

Will Smith III 3:35
Then that’s pretty much it. Okay. All right, again, that that limit, as far as you know, per household. Another distinction to make there is that, let’s say that you have, you know, a primary home, and then you have a home down at the beach, and then you have a home up in the mountains. Again, it’s not like you can grow four plants at every single one of those locations has to be your primary residence and that’s it.

Scott Cardani 3:56
Okay, that’s really important. I think a lot of people would have tried to slide under that radar.

Will Smith III 3:59
I think that a lot of people would have.

Scott Cardani 4:01
So that’s good to know.

Will Smith III 4:02
That could become very lucrative. But then there’s also, you know, aren’t very many penalties in place if you exceed that 10 plant limit.

Scott Cardani 4:11
10 plants or 4 plants?

Will Smith III 4:12
Four plants. Okay, four to 10 plants, you’re not going to be really hit with any significant penalty.

Scott Cardani 4:17
You know, what is the penalty for the say, up to 10? Plants, you got four legally, you got soldiers six illegally.

Will Smith III 4:24
If you’re over, that is going to be a $250. Fine. Okay, that’s all you got. If it’s the second time that you offend, then it’s going to be a class three misdemeanor, and I think it’s defined goes up. And then the third time it’s a class two misdemeanor, but again, if you’re between four and 10, plants, you’re never going to get anything more. The highest you’re going to get as a class two misdemeanor. If you go to 10 to 49 plants, then it is a class one misdemeanor. So you know, with class one misdemeanors.

Scott Cardani 4:53
12 months in jail, up to $2,500 fine.

Will Smith III 4:56
Exactly. So, that’s if you go in you have you know, 10 to 49. If you have 49 to 100 plants, then you start looking at felony territory.

Scott Cardani 5:04
Oh, wow. Okay, so that’s where the felony. So once you get to 50.

Will Smith III 5:07
Once you hit 50 plants, you’re going to start looking at some, you know, significant prison time.

Scott Cardani 5:14
So everybody’s, this is not like California, California actually has these grow plants you can grow as much as you want in your backyard, and are people out there who were fencing off an acre property and growing marijuana plants and doing whatever with them. You know, I’m sure it’s all legal. But my point is, Virginia is a little bit different than that. And so you got to be a little more careful what you do and know the rules if you’re going to endeavor in this, which, that’s your choice.

Will Smith III 5:35
Yes. So that mean, that’s, that’s really what you’re looking at, as far as penalties are concerned when people are growing. So you know, when you are growing your plants at home, just make sure that you haven’t tagged, you have that information in place, you know, saying that it’s you’re giving your license number giving, you’re giving a notation on there, also that it’s for personal use, and that it’s not for sale. But then that right there kind of takes us to the next part of this. Where well, how do you, you know, how do you share your weed with your friends?

Scott Cardani 6:05
And we’ll cover that in our next episode. But let’s stay here for a minute. Where we’re talking about is, and I don’t think you’ve addressed this, but it’s probably not that big of a deal. If you don’t have it marked your you have four plants, your legal but you didn’t put the tag on them. Is there a penalty for that?

Will Smith III 6:20
Same thing. I mean, if they’re not marked, let’s say that, yeah, it gets reported or they are visible?

Scott Cardani 6:25
Yes, as I was wondering.

Will Smith III 6:27
So that’s when you’re still gonna get hit with it. As long as you’re not exceeding the for plant limit. If they don’t have that tag, you’re still going to get your $250 Fine. So I would think they’re gonna give you a warning on the first time with that, but it’s just something that you want to make sure you’re doing. That’s not giving them more reason to, you know, for the police to bother you.

Scott Cardani 6:44
Okay, so we got this thing where we’re, where if you endeavor to grow weed, there are some restrictions that you need to know about first, four plants. Second, it’s got to be tagged with general information. And third, it’s got to be out of sight. And obviously, there’s some more rules, and we talked about some penalties. But basically, if you comply with that, you can be pretty happy and not worry about it. And obviously $250 fine for violations of these laws for some people is going to be a big deal for other people. It’s not going to be a big deal. We understand that. But we wanted to inform you we know that this industry is growing.

Will Smith III 7:18
Pun?

Scott Cardani 7:19
Exactly, pun intended. And we wanted to give you that kind of information. So please like and subscribe. We’re gonna come back and talk about some other things. But we appreciate you joining us today. Have a good day.

What To Do When… Outro 7:30

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of What To Do When… For more episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and we encourage you to check archives to listen to previous topics. Tune in next week for a new episode and some fresh perspective from Critzer Cardani.

Need Legal Representation? Contact Critzer Cardani.

We look forward to helping you in this venture and Good Luck!