Last verified: May 2026
The Logan County Native
Richard Neal Ojeda II was born in Logan County, West Virginia — the heart of the Southern Coalfields, surrounded by Mingo, Boone, McDowell, and Wyoming Counties that make up West Virginia’s most opioid-devastated region. Ojeda graduated from Chapmanville Regional High School and joined the U.S. Army, eventually retiring as a major after 24 years of service including deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Korea. He returned to Logan County and entered politics, winning a West Virginia State Senate seat representing the 7th District (Logan, Mingo, Boone, Lincoln — all Southern Coalfield counties) in 2016.
Ojeda’s Senate persona was deliberately combative and populist. His campaign signs read "Get out and vote, dammit." He physically protected supporters at events. He made national headlines after being attacked at a 2016 cookout. Within months of arriving at the Charleston Capitol, he had become one of the highest-profile Democratic state legislators in any state — an unusual posture in a chamber that had just flipped to a Republican supermajority.
The 2017 SB 386 Sponsorship
By the 2017 West Virginia legislative session, Sen. Mike Woelfel (D-Cabell) had carried earlier medical-cannabis bills with no success. The political opening that produced SB 386 was the opioid epidemic, which by 2017 had given West Virginia the highest U.S. drug-overdose death rate (51.5 per 100,000 in 2018, 57.8 in 2017). Ojeda took the Senate-sponsor lead role on what became Senate Bill 386, the West Virginia Medical Cannabis Act, which was framed almost entirely around offering chronic-pain patients a safer alternative to OxyContin and hydrocodone.
The bill cleared the West Virginia Senate 28–6 on April 5, 2017 and the House of Delegates 76–24 on April 4 (House concurrence on Senate amendments 74–24 on April 6). Gov. Jim Justice signed on April 19, 2017 — making West Virginia the 29th state with an effective medical-cannabis law. Ojeda’s pitch had carried socially-conservative Republican votes that Woelfel and Pushkin had not been able to capture in earlier sessions; the opioid frame, delivered by a retired Army major from Logan County, was politically irresistible. See SB 386 enactment page.
The Opioid-Alternative Frame
Ojeda’s SB 386 framing was almost exclusively opioid-coded. His coalfield district — including McDowell County, where the per-capita overdose rate has been among the highest in the United States — gave him moral standing on the opioid issue that no other state senator could match. His pitch in committee and on the floor:
- Williamson, WV (population ~3,000) had received 21 million hydrocodone tablets over a decade (2006–2014)
- Cabell County (Huntington) overdose rate hit 156.6 per 100,000 in 2017 — one of the highest on the planet
- Chronic-pain patients deserved a safer alternative
- Cannabis would not eliminate prescription opioid use, but would reduce the volume
The frame was reinforced by the Marijuana Policy Project’s Matt Simon, a WVU graduate and West Virginia native, who told the press after passage: "Medical marijuana can be effective in treating a variety of debilitating conditions and symptoms," and "for many patients, medical marijuana is a far safer alternative to opioids and other prescription drugs." See cannabis-as-opioid-alternative page.
The January 14, 2019 Resignation
Ojeda was elected to a four-year State Senate term in 2016. By 2018, he had launched a campaign for U.S. House (West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District, the southern WV district covering his coalfield home base). He lost the November 2018 general election to Republican Carol Miller despite over-performing the partisan baseline by ~30 points. Within weeks, in November 2018, Ojeda announced a 2020 Democratic presidential campaign. He resigned his West Virginia State Senate seat on January 14, 2019 — less than two years into his four-year term — to focus on the presidential bid.
The presidential campaign was short-lived. Ojeda withdrew on January 25, 2019, just 11 days after the resignation, citing fundraising and infrastructure problems. He subsequently ran for U.S. Senate (West Virginia, 2020 Democratic primary, lost) before largely exiting WV-state-level politics.
The North Carolina Move (2025–2026)
By 2025, Ojeda had relocated to North Carolina. In March 2026, he won the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District — an Appalachian-adjacent district in western North Carolina. Ojeda’s political career has moved south. The 2026 NC primary win means the original West Virginia Medical Cannabis Act sponsor is now a North Carolina congressional candidate, no longer a Mountain State political voice. WV cannabis advocacy has moved on to a new generation: Del. Mike Pushkin (D-Kanawha), Del. Sean Hornbuckle (D-Cabell), Sen. Mike Woelfel (D-Cabell), and the WV NORML / Compassion Coalition leadership. See WV reform coalition page.
What Ojeda’s Sponsorship Means Today
The SB 386 architecture is Ojeda’s most enduring West Virginia legacy. The Medical Cannabis Act’s core features — the 14 qualifying conditions, the Bureau-housed OMC structure, the 30-day patient supply, the (originally restrictive) product forms, the 10% privilege tax, the 3 ng/mL per se DUI rule, the explicit absence of patient workplace protections, the explicit absence of home-grow authorization — were all shaped during the 2017 sponsorship and have proven remarkably durable. Subsequent amendments (HB 2538 banking, SB 1037 vertical integration / 100 dispensaries, SB 339 dry leaf for vaporization) have refined but not transformed the SB 386 baseline. The 2026 reform attempts (HB 5260 edibles, HB 5259 home grow) all targeted SB 386’s original restrictive choices — and all failed.
The Sponsor Has Left, the Statute Remains
The Mountain State’s medical-cannabis program nine years after SB 386 enactment is administered by the Bureau for Public Health Office of Medical Cannabis at 350 Capitol Street, Room 523, Charleston. Approximately 35,000 patients are registered. About 65 dispensaries operate. Cumulative tax collections are ~$38M. Cumulative sales exceed $300M. None of these numbers exist without Ojeda’s 2017 sponsorship and the political coverage his coalfield-veteran identity provided. The fact that he is now running for Congress in another state does not diminish the institutional weight of SB 386 in Charleston. See OMC page.
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