Continuing our series on New York’s cannabis rules and regulations, we’re breaking down everything you need to know about New York's cannabis processor licenses (check out our other posts in the series here, here, here, and here). Because there is so much information packed into the regs, we’re doing this FAQ style. What are the
President Joe Biden just dropped the federal budget for 2024. The White House boldly claims that the tax plan will reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. But several parts of the budget's tax reforms are likely to significantly (and adversely) impact the cannabis industry. Today, I'll analyze a few key
A lot has happened in New York since the Canna Law Blog's first New York State of the State. Last year was action-packed for the cannabis industry in New York. With licenses issued and sales starting in 2022, New York got the ball rolling on an actual and legal cannabis industry. We expect 2023 will
Happy MLK Day! Time to catastrophize just a bit. Last year at this time, I kicked off this post by writing: 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
For our first post on our much-publicized series on New York’s adult-use cannabis rules and regulations, we are going to cover the specifics on the license application process itself. The application requirements tracks the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), in that it reiterates the two-tier system separating production and retail licenses and includes evaluation
Way back in Spring of 2021, we ran a series on the New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, which legalized adult-use cannabis in New York and established the framework for adult-use cannabis licensing. That series of posts covered everything from the available license types to the MRTA's real estate requirements. In keeping with our
On September 29, I spoke on an opening panel at the 7th annual Cannabis Law Conference for the Cannabis Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. My co-panelist was the renowned Brookings political scientist John Hudak. One of John's specialty areas is state and federal marijuana policy. The title of our panel was "Update
Cannabis Alter Ego Liability: When Separate Companies Stop Being Separate Forming an LLC or corporation ordinarily shields its owners from the company’s debts. Cannabis operators often take that protection further by using separate entities for different stores, licenses, properties, and business lines. In many states, licensing rules and real estate arrangements make some version of
If you are applying for an adult-use cannabis license in New York, please please please hire a New York cannabis attorney. It doesn't have to be be us, but it should be someone who is actually familiar with the licensing rules and regulations beyond just reading media headlines. We've written about it before (here, here
Cannabis businesses need money - and lots of it - to operate. Being mostly startups, operational profits are not enough to sustain their business. So cannabis businesses take on outside capital generally in one of two ways: taking on debt from cannabis lenders or bringing in equity investors. Due to industry volatility and a crash
