The Oregon marijuana industry is hurting, much like industry in California and other states. Among the many reasons (overproduction, market saturation) is that federal marijuana laws have not been reformed at all. For years marijuana entrepreneurs and their cheerleaders have repeated the refrain that federal reform of marijuana laws is just around the corner. These
The notion of ornamental trademark use is foreign to many cannabis businesses. This is unfortunate, because it’s an important issue to understand in the cannabis industry, where the only federal trademark protection we can obtain is for ancillary goods and services. (See here for the limitations of federal trademark protection in the cannabis industry.) The issue of
What is the TCPA again? For years past, we regularly counseled our clients about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) because the cannabis industry, like many others, were being targeted for TCPA violations which were sometimes legitimate, sometimes not. For those who are still unfamiliar, the TCPA is a federal statute that was passed in
Czechia, officially known as the Czech Republic, may soon the join the growing list of European countries with legal adult-use cannabis. Czech National Anti-Drug Coordinator Jindřich Vobořil is drafting the requisite legislation, which could be in place by 2024. As to what the new law might look like: The new measures should establish the level
Yes, medical marijuana could finally be coming to Japan. Last week, a panel made up of Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare pushed for an update to the country’s laws and rules to permit the importation of medical marijuana products. Japan is very conservative when it comes to marijuana: there is a strict ban
Amazon’s prohibited product algorithm gets drug paraphernalia analysis wrong Amazon’s prohibited product algorithm is creating issues in the ancillary cannabis business space. In doing so it directly contradicts the company’s pro-cannabis public image. On September 26, Seattle Times reporter Lauren Roseblatt wrote an interesting article describing Amazon’s abrupt removal of an herb grinder company’s (“Golden
Prospective cannabis businesses seeking to open dispensaries on Long Island are running into several issues and roadblocks with the proposed or adopted zoning legislation restricting operators to mainly industrial areas. As it stands, dispensaries can open only in Long Island towns that opted in for retail cannabis sales. To date, Babylon, Brookhaven, Riverhead and Southampton have opted-in
Oregon doesn’t want any new cannabis businesses. This turnabout happened rather quickly. Until this spring, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) issued most types of cannabis licenses to anyone who qualified under relatively broad parameters, through a cheap and simple licensing process. Oregon was even the first state to open its program to non-resident
Cannabis Recession on the Horizon A cannabis recession may be coming and no cannabis business is immune. Prices are rising, operations are expensive to run, over regulation is rampant, local control is stifling, and you can’t even take many business deductions with the IRS because of IRC 280E. While things like interstate commerce agreements are
It’s no secret that California cannabis is suffering for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the stranglehold on access caused by local control. Local control is never going away in cannabis. It’s one of the linchpins that gets voters to approve cannabis ballot measures (NIMBYs in particular love local control even though
