Three bills by Del. Joshua Cole that address public safety have passed both houses of the Virginia General Assembly recently and are headed to the governor’s desk.
The legislation addresses separately the subjects of firearms, driving, and the drug kratom, and Cole hopes his Democratic Party mate, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, will sign them.
HB702 deals with guns, and it has its roots in Fredericksburg.
The city started a firearm give-back program in 2014 at the urging of Vice Mayor Chuck Frye. It allows gun owners or anyone with an unwanted firearm to voluntarily turn it in to authorities. Then the weapons are offered to the Virginia Department of Forensic Science to assist with research.
Cole — whose 65th District is made up of Fredericksburg and parts of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties — said he and Frye started talking about expanding the initiative statewide as far back as 2020 when the legislator first got elected.
At first, the idea was to have the program run through the state police. But it was changed to direct every police department or sheriff’s office in Virginia to implement their own firearm give-back or buy-back program.
After making sure the guns weren’t used for a crime, each agency also can put the weapons up for auction, with the proceeds going to pay for the administration of the program or to the associated locality’s general fund.
Cole emphasized that the bill is not intended to mandate anyone give up their guns. It’s aimed at people who have firearms they no longer want or who discover guns unexpectedly.
“We’re finding out that when people commit crimes, they’re taking guns and they’re tossing them in the river,” the lawmaker said Thursday. “They’re tossing them into bushes. And so kids are finding them, or just a random person walking their dog will find these discarded guns. And people are turning those in.”
Cole also said the bill puts Fredericksburg “on the map” in a sense.
“This is something that Fredericksburg did, and we’re taking the blueprint from the city of Fredericksburg and taking it statewide,” he said.
HB320, meanwhile, prohibits drivers from initiating or participating in a social media livestream while on the road. Violations would carry penalties including license suspension and fines of up to $500.
Cole said his colleagues had lots of questions about this bill.
For example, “This has nothing to do with viewing or viewing screens or anything like that,” he explained. That’s already against the law.”
Rather, it’s about actively livestreaming while driving. One issue that spurred the legislation is a phenomenon called “ghost driving,” in which drivers, especially young ones, dangerously livestream while behind the wheel.
“They will get out of the car while the car is still moving, and they will dance beside the car while the video is going on,” Cole said.
Adults have been doing this, too, he said: livestreaming while they’re speeding or drag racing on the highway.
“And there have been car accidents,” Cole said. “There have been deaths. There was a young lady who was livestreaming while driving a few years ago, and she had a car accident. It killed her sister, but she walked away from it.”
These incidents are becoming more the norm, the lawmaker said, and Virginia should look to be preventative instead of reactionary.
HB360 targets kratom, a kind of drug from a leafy plant from Southeast Asia.
It’s used in energy drinks and in other forms, Cole said, and children are getting addicted to it.
Kratom has the same effect on your body as opioids, he said, so people are calling it a “gas station opioid” because it’s sold at gas stations and vape and tobacco shops.
Cole’s bill doesn’t ban the drug but puts regulations on it. You would have to be 21 to buy it, for instance, and any store that sells kratom-based products must put them behind the counter.
Kratom products also would have to carry a label with warning information.
“To me, all three of those bills are going to make our community safer,” Cole said.
Budget amendments
He has also submitted a few amendments to legislation that will create the next state budget. A conference committee is working on that, trying to iron out differences between budget language that was approved in the House of Delegates and what was agreed to in the state Senate.
The most prominent of Cole’s amendments would help pay for the establishment of a new medical school through a public-private partnership between the University of Mary Washington and Mary Washington Healthcare.
The partnership sought $2.5 million, the legislator said, and $1.7 million has made it into the budget bill so far.
“The university and the hospital said, ‘That will get us started, and we can make it work from there,’” Cole said.
He also seeks more than $5 million for other projects at UMW, and he has asked for $100,000 for the Healing Station Counseling Center in Stafford, a nonprofit that primarily serves the uninsured in the Fredericksburg area.
The center was recently chosen to receive $245,000 in federal funds to expand access to mental health services.
In addition to funding requests, Cole submitted a language-only budget amendment that would direct the state to look into how Stafford can be helped with an ongoing financial predicament.
The county is struggling to fill a fiscal hole in its coffers resulting mainly from revenue lost because of tax relief for disabled veterans. That program — along with tax relief for seniors — equates to $40 million Stafford won’t have in the next fiscal year.
Disclaimer: Mary Washington Healthcare is a sponsor of The Free Press. Sponsors do not influence newsroom operations.
