On July 22, 2020, Clint Eastwood filed two separate lawsuits in federal court in Los Angeles against three CBD manufacturers and marketing companies that posted fabricated online articles falsely claiming that Eastwood endorsed CBD products, as well as ten online CBD retailers that allegedly manipulated search results to make it appear that he had endorsed
The City of Los Angeles is no stranger to change and struggle around its local cannabis industry. Since the passage of Proposition M back in 2017, the City has made great strides but also suffered significant setbacks in building its licensed cannabis marketplace. Even through the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend continues for Los Angeles and
Anyone who knows me knows that I really enjoy sports of all kinds. I was a college soccer player and played competitive club soccer in Florida before that from the age of 7 onward (and I now play in an adult co-ed league in Los Angeles). Unfortunately, COVID-19 has put the damper on watching live
It’s been a while since we’ve written about the unfolding cannabis licensing situation in the City of Los Angeles, and a lot has happened. For some background on LA’s complicated licensing process, it has proceeded to date in multiple “phases” administered by the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation (“DCR”): The first phase was limited to
In my ten years of advising and guiding cannabis companies from a corporate, transactional, and M&A perspective, and especially since 2012 (when Washington and Colorado legalized), every cannabis market in which I’ve worked has experienced a period of extensive business failures, consolidations, and market stress. And it’s that time now for California cannabis (and that
At 5:30 p.m. yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom took a giant step forward in preventing the spread of COVID-19 by enacting a “Stay At Home” order (the “Order”) across the state, mandating that California state residents remain in their homes, except to fulfill “essential” needs. The Order is in place seemingly indefinitely as Newsom would
It’s no secret that California’s illicit cannabis market is alive and well; a recent audit showed that there are nearly 3,000 unlawful cannabis businesses in the Golden State. A few months ago, I wrote a post offering a few suggestions on how the state could combat the problem of illicit cannabis, and I am not
Dozens of times per month, I am asked by clients and potential clients whether hemp-derived cannabidiol (“Hemp CBD”) products are legal in California. With almost any other product, I can give an easy “yes” or “no” answer. But with Hemp CBD, my answer usually takes five to ten minutes to explain and ultimately ends with
Getting a cannabis license in Los Angeles has been notoriously difficult—and may be about to get worse as news dropped last week that a Los Angeles City Council member is recommending that the most recent phase of licensing applications essentially be suspended. For some background on LA’s complicated licensing process, it has proceeded to date
Last week was a big one in terms of California’s social equity programs, with the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC) announcing its award of equity grant funding to a number of local jurisdictions “to be used for commercial cannabis equity programs that focus on inclusion and support of persons or communities that were negatively or
