Vince is an award-winning business lawyer, problem solver and dealmaker. His clients run the gamut from individual investors and entrepreneurs to widely held domestic and international corporations. Based in Portland, Oregon, he is Managing Partner of Harris Sliwoski and Editor of the Canna Law Blog and the Psychedelics Law Blog.
It’s MLK Day once again. I have written an MLK Day post on this blog for nine consecutive years. The theme of all these posts is that cannabis is a civil rights issue, and that Dr. King would have advocated for ending marijuana prohibition based on that fact. Each year, I have demonstrated with facts
Register here Webinar overview This webinar will feature Harris Sliwoski attorneys Jason Adelstone (Denver, CO) and Vince Sliwoski (Portland, OR). Jason and Vince will examine a pair of significant developments for federal cannabis law and policy in 2026. These developments are: 1) last month’s Executive Order from President Trump, to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I
Welcome to the 10th annual “State of the State” post on Oregon cannabis. A great many things have changed over the years, and I’m planning to write another lookback post soon. For now, though, let’s cover everything that happened in 2025—which is a lot. Sales and market data According to OLCC data, total sales from
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Canna Provisions, Inc. et al. v. Bondi, a high-profile lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the federal prohibition of intrastate (and not interstate) cannabis activity. The denial offered no reasoning; nor was it accompanied by dissents or concurrences from any of the justices—all of which is
Yesterday afternoon, the Washington Post and other sources reported that President Trump is expected to issue an executive order directing federal agencies to reclassify marijuana, to Schedule III. That’s some sexy reportage, although WaPo’s sources cautioned that “Trump could still change his mind” and “[a] White House official said no final decisions have been made
Last month, I gave my big-picture thoughts on the intoxicating hemp products ban under P.L. 119-37, concluding that enforcement was an open question. That question has started to pick up steam, particularly following a Congressional Research Service report published on December 3rd. The CRS report provides: …it remains unclear if and how federal law enforcement
Federal cannabis policy has always been a mess. When I say “always”, I’m looking back 90 years or so, beginning with the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, then skipping ahead to the Controlled Substances Act, the Rohrbacher-Farr Amendment, the 2014 Farm Bill, and the 2018 Farm Bill—not to mention the various awkward and occasionally incoherent
The U.S. government reopened on Wednesday and promptly “closed the loophole” on intoxicating hemp products. I use those tacky quotes because I don’t believe there ever was a loophole. But now we can stop having those debates, I suppose, because Congress has sealed the deal. The ban on intoxicating hemp items comes via a continuing
Minnesota is the latest state to develop a secondary market for cannabis license sales. I’d call the Minnesota market “robust”, except that the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) hasn’t issued all that many licenses in the first place. Still, one source recently estimated “at least 80” licenses recently posted for sale. It’s a real thing.
We continue to represent myriad buyers and sellers of OLCC marijuana licenses. At any given time, we are running 10-12 of these transactions, and sometimes more, as we have for many years. Recently, there have been a few changes worth noting, particularly as to the OLCC protocols. I’ll touch briefly on other market dynamics, too.
