Democrats and Republicans support Virginia Attorney General's call to decriminalize marijuana possession

In a Daily Press op-ed, Attorney General Mark Herring said the state needed to make moves towards legal and regulated adult use of marijuana, starting by decriminalizing possession.

Only about 13,000 individuals were arrested for marijuana possession in 2003 in Virginia. That amount grew by some 115 percent by 2017 with nearly 28,000 people facing convictions for small amounts of cannabis. The biggest demographic of arrests were African Americans, who accounted for 46 percent of first offense possession arrests from 2007 to 2016, according to the Virginia Crime Commission, even though black people only made up about 20 percent of the state's population.

He added:"It cannot be ignored that the burden of the current system falls disproportionately on African Americans and people of color."

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