On Wednesday, an armored FBI vehicle and several agents arrived outside the Portsmouth office of Virginia Senate president pro tempore L. Louise Lucas and the storefront of her Cannabis Outlet, the legal hemp and CBD shop she opened after the state legalized marijuana. The bureau announced only that it was executing a court‑authorized search warrant; officials did not disclose what evidence they were seeking.
“Let’s talk about pot,” Lucas wrote on X in 2022. “Yes, we legalized it and I even opened the Cannabis Outlet after we did! But the job isn’t done. People are still in jail for something that is legal today.”
Lucas was first elected to the Virginia Senate in 1988 and became the state’s first Black woman Senate president pro tempore in 2019 after Democrats seized the chamber’s majority. She has also led a Portsmouth nonprofit that provides residences, day programs and transportation for adults with intellectual disabilities, and she was the first female ship fitter at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
The FBI’s action arrives as Virginia lawmakers continue to grapple with cannabis regulation and broader criminal‑justice reforms, raising questions about the federal government’s stance toward state‑legal marijuana enterprises and the political implications for a senior Black legislator.