Inside Virginia’s Market: Notes From the October 2025 CCA Board Meeting
As part of an ongoing research project comparing how different states regulate and monitor their rec/med markets, I tuned into the October 1, 2025 meeting of Virginia’s (CCA).
On the surface, it was a standard government session—call to order, minutes, quorum. But beneath the parliamentary language, you could feel something deeper stirring: a state wrestling with an all to familiar problem…
The Statewide Mystery Shop of the Underground
The standout moment of the meeting came from Dr. Elena Holt, a researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her team has been quietly doing what no enforcement agency has: secret shopping the state’s gray market.
They went across Virginia—from bakeries to “social clubs,” vape stores, and underground dispensaries—buying products the way anyone might. What they found could make even hardened regulators wince.
Unlabeled and unsafe:
Edibles sold as “artisanal” contained mold and traces of coliform—yes, fecal contamination.
Vape cartridges were imported from California and Los Angeles, often past their expiration dates.
Many products had no potency or ingredient labeling at all.
Potency problems: Out of 25 samples, nearly half were mislabeled by at least 50%, and some so-called “hemp” vapes tested ten times higher than the legal THC threshold.
Mind the Children: Holt’s lab also tests vaping devices confiscated from students. Since 2023, elementary school kids have been caught with cannabinoid vapes—some running 90% potency, some mixed with synthetic compounds like delta-8 or THC-P. The new “dual chamber” vapes are especially alarming: one side nicotine, the other THC, both mislabelled and cross-contaminated.
This wasn’t some law enforcement sting. It was science, plain and cold. The kind of methodical evidence that cuts through politics. Holt’s report made one thing painfully clear: Virginia’s partial legalization has created a parallel market that’s cleaner on Instagram than it is in reality.
What It Says About Oversight—and Why New Mexico Should Be Paying Attention
If you’re in New Mexico, this story sounds uncomfortably familiar. The only comparable “investigation” we’ve seen here didn’t come from regulators—it came from Larry Barker, the investigative journalist who tore into the state’s illicit hemp market. His findings mirrored Holt’s almost line for line: untested, mislabeled, and contaminated products flooding stores; out-of-state packaging; compounds that had no business being in the product at all.
The difference? Virginia’s evidence came from a university lab working hand-in-hand with regulators. New Mexico’s came from a TV newsroom.
That contrast tells you everything about where both states stand. Virginia, for all its bureaucratic crawl, is starting to measure its shadow economy with data. New Mexico, despite a fully legalized retail system, still hasn’t funded a single independent research audit (That i know of) into its illicit crossover market. The gaps remain the same: enforcement thin, testing inconsistent, communication fractured between CCD, DOH, law enforcement, and most importantly, license holders.
Takeaway: Study the Street Before It Studies You
The Virginia meeting wasn’t sexy—no policy bombshells or fiery debate—but it was educational and informative. The state is turning the microscope back on its own system, and in doing so, it’s exposing what everyone else prefers to ignore: the real, unregulated market doesn’t vanish after legalization. It mutates.
New Mexico could learn from that. Because as Larry Barker’s cameras already proved, we’re facing the same contamination, the same mystery-source hemp, and the same counterfeit packaging—just without the data to back it up.
I feel like i know whats happening in other states more than i do New Mexico sometimes.
