The state agency tasked with oversight of Virginia’s cannabis industry has exited its downtown headquarters in favor of a new spot in the leafy suburbs.

The Virginia Cannabis Control Authority relocated last month to the Deep Run III office building at 9954 Mayland Drive in western Henrico.

The CCA occupies about 15,000 square feet in its new space, which replaces its former headquarters in the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission building at 333 E. Franklin St. in the city. The CCA said the move makes it more accessible to the general public in a space better laid out for its employees’ needs.

An agency spokeswoman said the Deep Run space was appealing because it has a conference center that allows more people to attend the organization’s board of directors meetings and has free parking that meeting attendees can utilize.

“This space was selected after an extensive search of properties, identified through a request for proposals, in the central Virginia region,” the spokeswoman said in an email. “The CCA successfully negotiated lease terms that include a rent-free period resulting in a cost-effective solution to optimize space utilization and give the public better accessibility to the agency.”

The organization, which has about 30 full-time employees, oversees the state’s medical marijuana program and cannabis regulation and policy in Virginia. The agency took over oversight of the state’s medical program from the Board of Pharmacy this year.

The CCA occupies suite 3100 in the building, which was once part of the headquarters campus of now-defunct electronics retailer Circuit City. The property is owned by Massachusetts-based RMR Group, which acquired the 355,000-square-foot office building for $56 million in 2019.

The Deep Run III building at 9954 Mayland Drive in Innsbrook.

The CCA moved into its new space around the time Gov. Glenn Youngkin appointed Roxann Robinson to the agency’s five-member board of directors.

Robinson is a retired optometrist and former Republican member of the House of Delegates, where she served from 2010 to 2024.

The board’s other members are: Neil Amin, CEO of Shamin Hotels; John Keohane, retired Hopewell police chief; Michael Massie, a Portsmouth trial attorney; and Anthony Williams, a former Drug Enforcement Administration official.

Amin and Massie were appointed by former Gov. Ralph Northam, and have served on the board since the CCA was created in 2021. That was the same year that recreational use of marijuana became legal in Virginia. Keohane and Williams are Youngkin appointees.

While it’s legal for adults to possess and use cannabis recreationally in Virginia, it remains illegal to sell recreational cannabis within the state. That’s despite attempts in the last several years by legislators to launch a legal recreational market. Currently, only the companies involved in the state-sanctioned medical cannabis program can legally sell marijuana in Virginia.

The state allows one company to grow and sell medical marijuana in each of its five health service areas. New York-based company Cannabist has permission to operate in Health Service Area 4, which covers the Richmond and Petersburg areas. Cannabist also controls the license for Health Service Area 5, which includes Hampton Roads and eastern Virginia.

Licensees are able to operate up to five satellite dispensaries in addition to a single pot growing-and-processing facility within the borders of each licensee’s associated health service area. In the zone that includes Richmond, Cannabist grows marijuana at a Manchester facility, which has an in-house dispensary, and operates satellite dispensaries under the Cannabist and gLeaf brands.

Cannabist opened a dispensary in eastern Henrico earlier this year, following the opening of its other satellite dispensaries in Carytown, Short Pump and Colonial Heights in recent years.

This fall, the CCA announced it had picked Metrc, a Florida-based company, to run a seed-to-sale tracking program for the state’s medical cannabis companies. The system is slated to launch in summer 2025 and is intended to monitor the quality and safety of cannabis sold in the state from planting to production and sales.

Josiah Trotter is heading to the Southeastern Conference.

On Monday, the former West Virginia linebacker and son of former NFL linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Sr. announced he’s transfering to Missouri and coach Eliah Drinkwitz. ESPN’s Pete Thamel first reported Trotter’s decision to join the Tigers.

“I’m home Mizzou,” Josiah Trotter wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after posting a photo of him in a Missouri jersey.

Thamel reported that Drinkwitz and Missouri beat out Washington in the sweepstakes for Josiah Trotter. He entered the transfer portal on Dec. 4, three days after the Mountaineers fired Neil Brown and eight days before hiring his successor in former West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez.

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247Sports listed Trotter as the No. 5 linebacker in the transfer portal.

After redshirting his true freshman year rehabbing from a lower-leg injury that he sustained in spring practice, the 6-foot-2 linebacker had a breakout season for the Mountaineers this year. In 12 games this season, Josiah Trotter finished with 93 total tackles (four for a loss), two broken-up passes, an interception and half a sack en route to winning the Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year — which marked a first in program history.

He finished with 10 or more tackles in four games this season for the Mountaineers against Penn State, Kansas, Iowa State and Cincinnati.

Josiah Trotter is the younger brother of former Clemson linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr., who was selected in the third round of the NFL draft in April by the Philadelphia Eagles. He is the fourth player in the transfer portal to commit to Missouri this offseason, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune’s Calum McAndrew.

Josiah Trotter 247Sports ranking

• As prospect: Three-star recruit | No. 44 ranked linebacker | No. 9 prospect in Pennsylvania
• As transfer: Three-star recruit | No. 5 ranked linebacker

Josiah Trotter was ranked as a three-star recruit and the No. 5 linebacker in the transfer portal, according to 247Sports. He received similar rankings out of high school at St. Joe’s Prep by 247Sports’ Composite rankings, which had him as a three-star recruit and the No. 44 linebacker in the 2023 recruiting class.

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Reps. Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton roared into Washington six years ago as part of a record wave of women vying for House seats, many on a mission to push back against the politics of Donald Trump.

“We were part of that 2018 class, and we sort of ran in there like: ‘There’s a fire. We’re here,’” Spanberger said.

The outgoing congresswoman, who along with Wexton recently reflected on their time in Congress in interviews with The Associated Press, drew a quick breath.

“It’s slightly different than the tone of where things are right now,” she said.

That is an understatement. Trump, a president the two Virginia Democrats campaigned against as they unseated established incumbent Republicans, is about to embark on a second term after mounting an improbable political comeback. Of the 35 Democratic women first elected in 2018, Spanberger and Wexton are among 14 who have since left or will be leaving Congress by next year.

That’s not to say their journey is over or that they are retreating from public discourse.

Kelly Dittmar, research director at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, described Virginia as a canary in a coal mine when voters elected more women to the statehouse in 2017, followed by the election of Spanberger, Wexton and former Rep. Elaine Luria there in 2018. But Dittmar said progress toward better gender representation hasn’t always been linear.

Last month, 21 of the original 35 female Democrats first elected in 2018 ran for reelection to their House seats, not including Rep. Elissa Slotkin, elected to the Senate by Michigan voters this year. And in those races, 20 won. They’ll be among the 150 women — 110 Democrats and 40 Republicans — serving in the 119th Congress next year, one woman shy of a record of 151 set in 2023.

Spanberger, meanwhile, is running for governor in a race comprised solely of two female candidates, making it likely that Virginia’s next governor will be a woman for the first time.

But when women leave elected office, Dittmar said, their absence is felt more acutely because there is less female representation to begin with. She said it’s unclear whether the U.S. will see another surge of women filing to run anytime soon.

She looked into why women said they ran in 2018 and “yes, there is evidence that they talked about Donald Trump,” Dittmar said. “I think the difference between ’16 and ’24 — and that we just can’t know yet — is the degree of exhaustion and the degree of toxicity that may go into a calculation about deciding whether or not to run for office.”

For both Spanberger and Wexton, that path has taken unexpected turns.

After twice winning reelection, Wexton was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a life-threatening neurological disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease, and made the difficult decision to retire. Spanberger is exchanging her congressional pin for a loftier goal in state politics. They will be succeeded in Congress by Democrats Eugene Vindman and Suhas Subramanyam, cutting Virginia’s female congressional representation from four to two.

A bond forged in public service and friendship

In the stately formality of a congressional conference room, Spanberger and Wexton reminisced on their time on Capitol Hill. They have become uncommonly close, bound by time spent together, some shared views on public policy and a friendship that has managed to transcend the ups and downs of Washington politics. A stream of text messages that began after their victory speeches in 2018 has continued ever since.

Their bids for Congress were backed by many women who marched, phone-banked and organized in a grass-roots movement that decried Trump and worked to elect female Democrats.

They won the votes. They took an oath. And then, the women got to work.

Wexton, previously a state senator and prosecutor, developed a reputation for taking care of her district, said Rosalyn Cooperman, a professor at the University of Mary Washington. Cooperman said she vied for funding opportunities and committee assignments that helped bring tens of millions of dollars in federal investments to northern Virginia. She also tackled opioid addiction, transgender rights and childhood cancer research. After announcing her diagnosis, Wexton co-sponsored the National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act, which President Joe Biden signed in July. Lawmakers named the legislation in her honor.

Spanberger, an ex-CIA operative who stopped working at an education company to run for Congress, cultivated a knack for tackling lower-profile issues: bringing broadband to rural areas, fighting drug trafficking and veterans’ issues. The Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School ranked the Virginia Democrat as the 17th most bipartisan member of the House last year.

“Both women really understood the districts that they represented and what the districts needed, and went about the work very effectively and without too much fanfare,” Cooperman said.

Spanberger and Wexton became fast friends while first campaigning for their House seats in 2018. The two formed a trio with Luria, who left Congress after losing to Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans in 2022. Spanberger described Wexton as her quick-witted big sister — someone who gave her advice on everything from raising teenagers to navigating a legislature. At one point, Wexton wrote Spanberger a script for speaking on the House floor.

Wexton, with the help of an artificial intelligence program, spoke of Spanberger supporting her in a more vulnerable way: styling Wexton’s hair as she showed up to Congress with her health struggles.

“That is no small feat — I had experienced first-hand how hard it was becoming to do my hair,” Wexton said. “For the next almost 90 minutes, Abigail would put various potions in my hair and dry it with a round brush.

“It was wonderful. I felt so pampered.”

Spanberger, with tears welling in her eyes, laughed, “You have so much hair!”

Wexton learned she had progressive supranuclear palsy in 2023. Within the last two years, she lost her ability to speak clearly and walk without assistance. In her interview, the congresswoman used her pointer finger to type thoughts on her tablet, which she then played aloud. In her final months in Congress, she said, well-meaning colleagues would talk to her like a child or reintroduce themselves to her.

“My PSP has robbed me of my voice, and others may take that to mean it has robbed me of my cognitive ability as well,” she said. “But that’s not true. I’m just as much me as I’ve always been.”

As the current term ends, many women are coming to terms with Trump’s ascent back to power. Many Democrats say the fight isn’t over but has changed in unexpected ways.

“To be very clear, I’m super excited that Eugene Vindman and Suhas Subramanyam are replacing us,” Spanberger said. “But it is a little bit bittersweet that we came in with this group of three women, and within three terms, we’re both — that all three of us are no longer there.”

Wexton said she hoped people, and women specifically, would persevere.

“We’re not going to win every battle or every election,” she said, “but it is true that our democracy works best when more people participate in it.”

___

Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.

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