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.
The 2022 Oregon legislative session kicks off today. It’s a short session this year, with fewer cannabis bills than usual crowding the docket. In 2021, for example, we had 28 enrolled bills to start; eventually, 10 became law. This year we start with only five enrolled bills. Those five submissions overlap in some cases, but
Happy MLK Day! If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he would almost certainly advocate to end the War on Drugs. Dr. King never spoke publicly about drugs or cannabis in particular: he was assassinated in 1968, two years before President Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). But it is well established that
Welcome to the sixth annual “State of the State” post on Oregon cannabis. This year was relatively staid compared to 2020, but key features included: a plateau in pricing and regulated sales; intensifying local competition; important new laws, administrative rules and policies; a hollowed out hemp market; and some interesting large company activity. Sales look
For the past year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has directed its attention to the cannabis industry– in a helpful way! This includes promulgation of cannabis tax guidelines as well as webinars and public forums dedicated to tax compliance for marijuana businesses (together, the “Guidelines”). The stated IRS goal here is “to positively impact filing
Last week, the Supreme Court of South Dakota overturned a voter-approved, constitutional amendment to legalize adult use cannabis statewide. Governor Kristi Noem instigated the anti-democratic fight on social welfare grounds, although the court made its ruling on technical grounds, finding that Amendment A violated a “single-issue” initiative subject requirement. If that’s true, you’d have to
Last Friday, I spoke on a panel for the American Bar Association (ABA) in Denver. It was the first conference for the ABA’s new Global Cannabis section and the first live event I’ve done since COVID started. The panel discussed “Legal Ethics in International Cannabis.” My colleague Adams Lee participated too, but on another panel
An Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) licensee must comply with all rules stemming from ORS 475B. There are a lot of them. These rules have been in a constant state of flux since 2015, and they are buttressed by other sets of permanent rules, temporary rules, proposed rules, bulletins and guidance. In my experience,
I was born in Rogers Park, Chicago. When I abandoned college (one of the times), I moved back to work in a Greek and Albanian restaurant and live with my grandparents. I used to enjoy sitting at the breakfast table with them and reading the Tribune, which often carried stories of city and downstate corruption.
By and large, cannabis businesses are small businesses. We’ve represented hundreds of these businesses over the years, in many states. Within these businesses one finds many kinds of people. They include legacy operators transitioning from traditional markets, to well-heeled investors coming from industries like banking and private equity. And everyone in between. Of course, performance
For the past few years, I have been engaged as an expert witness on a series of cannabis litigation matters here in Oregon. The way litigants use experts varies across jurisdictions due to local rules of evidence and other factors, but in any jurisdiction, compelling expert testimony can make or break a case. In this
