LYNCHBURG, Va. – One man is working to clear up confusion over a new law.
As of Thursday, cannabis is now legal for people 21 and up to have, use and grow in Virginia. However, unless a doctor has signed off on a prescription, there’s no legal way to buy it.
Many in Lynchburg have come to call Jonathan Zinski Virginia’s Johnny Appleseed of cannabis.
“I am very happy about it,” he says.
By day, he’s a customer service rep for a major corporation. By night, he’s a guy pursuing a passion — running a small hemp farm about 20 miles outside of town.
“It’s a huge grey area right now,” he says. “They sped up the process of legalizing possession and use.”
In the Commonwealth, you can now legally have and use cannabis. There’s just one problem.
“They still haven’t figured out buying and selling,” Zinski says.
The only way to legally get seeds is to get them for free, so that’s what Zinski set out to do.
After spending countless hours seeking donations from major cannabis producers, he passed out thousands of seeds to local retailers to give to customers.
“Unfortunately, I can’t be growing anything large scale with THC yet,” he says. “I would love to see how the law pans out as far as being more fair to smaller growers, people who don’t have money.”
It will be three more years before you can buy and sell in the commonwealth. Zinski says we can’t wait. He wants to get seeds into as many hands as possible.
“I want to give people an avenue that they can legally grow, they can legally obtain seeds and they can do it in a responsible way.”