Welcome to the seventh annual “State of the State” post on Oregon cannabis. For the first year since program launch, regulated cannabis sales fell in the state. We also saw significant legislative and regulatory changes, further contraction of the hemp industry and a myriad of interesting odds and ends. Overall, it has been a rocky
As we blogged about last week, the SAFE Banking Act is trying to claw its way back from the dead during this lame duck session of Congress. Interestingly, on December 2, Punchbowl News reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo outlining its “issues” with the SAFE Banking Act. Here’s the memo (“Memo”).
Last week, I wrote a piece entitled “Deschedule Cannabis, Don’t Reschedule It.” The post came on the heels of President Joe Biden’s announcement that the federal government is considering the federal scheduling of cannabis. As I noted, rescheduling cannabis to schedule II or below is a bad idea, because it would subject cannabis to DEA
On October 6, 2022, President Joe Biden announced a retroactive pardon for simple possession of marijuana. He also announced that the federal government will review marijuana’s federal scheduling. His announcement suggests that the federal government may reschedule cannabis or even deschedule cannabis. Rescheduling cannabis is a bad idea, as I explain below. If the government
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
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
I’m guilty of dunking on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the past for not doing more to protect cannabis consumers, despite the current federal illegality of cannabis. That may be changing, at least with respect to CBD consumers. Before diving into this latest development, I should mention that historically, cannabis is treated differently from
International hemp is big business. There are all kinds opportunities around import, export, production, processing, and sale of international hemp and hemp products. We handle these inquiries on a weekly basis, and have since 2018 when the federal government legalized the cultivation of hemp with the passage of the 2018 Agricultural Improvement Act (“2018 Farm Bill”).
If you’re a cannabis lab, researcher, or scientist, the NIH is interested in hearing your thoughts! Last week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) posted a request for information (RFI)* regarding identifying the barriers to cannabis research. Through this RFI, the NIH aims to address the problems that researchers face in attempting to study cannabis.
Tobacco paraphernalia is in many cases indistinguishable from cannabis paraphernalia, especially when products are unconnected to specific consumers. If an item can be used in both lawful and unlawful ways, it seems illogical to classify it as drug paraphernalia, unless the item is connected to illegal activity. Yet the approach of the U.S. federal authorities
