At the beginning of the summer, I wrote a post entitled “California Gives Up on the Illegal Cannabis Market” in which I went into detail about the state’s failure to meaningfully address the festering illegal market. More recently, I wrote about “Another California Cannabis Enforcement Program That Won’t Work.” As the name suggests, this post was
Cannabis businesses use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) constantly. This may be due to a series of factors, or some combination thereof: 1) the relative hardship of acquiring and protecting intellectual property over marijuana-related processes and products, today and historically; 2) a general modus operandi of “close to the vest” dealings in an industry that historically was
It’s 2023 and many cannabis businesses are still missing one critical operating document: a privacy policy. I’ve been writing and talking about this issue for years. And things are not getting better. So let’s talk about it once more. To start, California has required privacy policies for a very long time (well, “long” at least
The OLCC announced several changes to the tax compliance rule this weekend at the Cannabis & Psychedelic Section of the Oregon Bar Association’s annual conference (where I was pleased to moderate a panel on the failures of legalization). This rule has been a hot topic in Oregon cannabis for several months and the OLCC will
During New York’s Cannabis Advisory Board’s meeting on September 26, 2023, the Office of Cannabis Management’s (OCM) Executive Director Christopher Alexander revealed that the OCM anticipated issuing “over a thousand, closer to 1,500 licenses” as part of the initial licensing window that is currently scheduled to open on October 4, 2023. As referenced in this
When Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill, did it intend to legalize intoxicating hemp products? If it did, why didn’t it just legalize marijuana? And why didn’t it address the manufacture or sale of intoxicating hemp products? I think the answer to all of these questions is clearly “no.” Congress did not intend to open
Wisconsin may soon become the latest U.S. state to legalize adult-use cannabis. On September 22 of this year, a bill drafted by Sen. Melissa Agard (D-Madison) and Rep. Darin Madison (D-Milwaukee) was introduced in the state legislature. This is the latest in a series of legalization initiatives in the Badger State. The bill would make
The internet is littered with writings on the relative merits of corporate forms and tax elections for cannabis businesses. Even the best of these articles are as dull as ditchwater, because the topic is tax. Most of the authors mention subchapter S taxation at some point, and the showier ones may even dredge up cannabis
Cannabis leasing is incredibly complicated for both lessors and lessees. But things can get a lot more complicated in competitive license jurisdictions. I’ve worked with both lessors and lessee-applicants in competitive licensing jurisdictions, and today want to highlight some of the key things I’ve seen over the years. #1 Why competitive licensing is different from
Cannabis rescheduling appears to be a matter of time and my colleagues have written about the possible implications (see here, here, and here). Rescheduling to a less restrictive category will also have implications for trademarking by cannabis brands. By broadening the legality of cannabis goods and services, rescheduling will also make more canna trademarks eligible
