Election season is coming. This means that cannabis ballot measures, initiatives, initiated proposals, legislative proposals, etc. are moving to the fore. I won’t set out to explain the differences among the several state protocols. You’d leave. In the cannabis context, suffice it to say that “ballot measures” are somehow convoluted and dramatic all at once.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress certain enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8), with powers “not delegated to the [federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” (Tenth Amendment). While one of the enumerated powers is the regulation of interstate commerce, the
In the leadup to the Office of Cannabis Management (“OCM”) application portal opening date of August 25, 2022 for Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (“CAURD”) licenses we have received a few repeat questions from our clients regarding the application. This list of frequently asked questions is by no means the entirety of the questions we
Last year, California passed into law AB-45, which paved the way for a regulated CBD market in the state. However, California flip-flopped on inhalable CBD products. Earlier CBD legislation would have allowed them, but then drafts of AB-45 prohibited them. Finally, we landed on an interesting compromise that made basically everyone unhappy. Today I’ll unpack
On August 17, the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the the holding of the US District Court for the District of Maine that the residency requirements of Maine’s Medical Use Marijuana Act violate the Dormant Commerce Clause (“DCC”). The First Circuit has added itself to the list of jurisdictions that have invalidated similar state
International hemp is big business. There are all kinds opportunities around import, export, production, processing, and sale of international hemp and hemp products. We handle these inquiries on a weekly basis, and have since 2018 when the federal government legalized the cultivation of hemp with the passage of the 2018 Agricultural Improvement Act (“2018 Farm Bill”).
I like being a cannabis business lawyer. It took a while for me to get there. I certainly didn’t think I would be doing this while I was in law school, or at the start of my career. Like a lot of things in life, it just sort of… happened. And I’ve learned a lot
Tobacco paraphernalia is in many cases indistinguishable from cannabis paraphernalia, especially when products are unconnected to specific consumers. If an item can be used in both lawful and unlawful ways, it seems illogical to classify it as drug paraphernalia, unless the item is connected to illegal activity. Yet the approach of the U.S. federal authorities
In 2024, we may finally see adult-use marijuana in Florida. This week, Smart & Safe Florida, a non-profit political organization, filed its ballot initiative, “Adult Personal Use of Marijuana“, with the Division of Elections to legalize the adult use of marijuana in Florida. Make it Legal Florida already unsuccessfully tried to get adult use on
L.A. County commercial cannabis is finally coming in 2023. We covered the breaking news about L.A. County commercial cannabis regulations here. This is a huge deal, because L.A. County is the biggest county in the U.S. with over 9 million residents. L.A. County plans to allow the following businesses in in its borders in 2023:
