For better or worse, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (a/k/a Prop. 65) has long plagued California businesses. And cannabis businesses are no exception (see here and here). Prop. 65 requires businesses to provide “a clear and reasonable warning before they cause an exposure to a chemical listed as known to
It’s no secret that California has a massive cannabis illicit market, despite the fact that it is perfectly legal (under state law) to sell cannabis if a business goes through the licensing process and complies with state and local laws. However, since the passage of the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation Act (MAUCRSA), and the
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) took effect at the beginning of the year. CCPA is a massive privacy law similar in scope to the European Union’s infamous General Data Protection Regulation, and applies to many businesses (not just cannabis businesses) that are based in or even “do business” in California. I wrote about the
Due to the federal illegality of cannabis, cannabis businesses don’t receive normal treatment from the federal government (with maybe one or two exceptions, like the NLRB and the 2014 FinCEN guidance for access to financial institutions). This obviously mucks up the ability of a cannabis business to operate in a consistent and reliable way, and
California’s three cannabis agencies–the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), and California Department of Public Health (CDPH)–aggressively regulate every aspect of the state’s licensed cannabis industry. Most of the agencies’ rules make sense or have some justifiable purpose. Today, I want to talk about some of the rules that
On February 20, 2020, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) released its proposed regulations for the Cannabis Appellations Program, something that many cultivators have been anticipating since the inception of the Medicinal and Adult Use Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA). We’ve written about appellations and their applicability to cannabis before, but a quick
California cannabis regulators are slowly getting into enforcement mode under the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation Act (“MAUCRSA”). Ostensibly, enforcement to date has been around illegal sales and/or around the manufacturing of illegal products (like vape cartridges). It’s only a matter of time though before enforcement becomes more sophisticated around licensing, including the state
We’ve written many times about how commercial leases to cannabis tenants are their own beasts. Generic leases don’t ever the job done. And, in California, as bad as some landlords want to rely solely on AIR and CAR forms, we generally caution landlords to have a customized lease arrangement when dealing with a cannabis tenant.
We’ve followed and written extensively about trademark litigation in the cannabis space for the last several years, which you can read about here: UPS Sues Multiple Cannabis Delivery Companies for Trademark Infringement The “Tiger Hemp Beer” Case: Clear Your Cannabis Trademarks Before Filing Yet ANOTHER Cannabis Trademark Infringement Case: Tapatio Foods Files Suit What NOT
We’ve written a lot about cannabis M & A, entity selection choices, and financing on the Canna Law Blog and how these transaction and changes do not amount run of the mill transactions because of the invasive regulatory overlay in almost all states. California though stands alone when it comes to the regulatory gauntlet on
