Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (the "FDA") maintained its strict and narrow position on the legality of cannabidiol ("CBD") by rejecting two new dietary ingredient (“NDI”) notifications submitted by Charlotte’s Web and Irwin Naturals. Both companies sought agency clearance to market their full-spectrum hemp extract as "dietary supplements." In its letters to these
For the past few years, I have been engaged as an expert witness on a series of cannabis litigation matters here in Oregon. The way litigants use experts varies across jurisdictions due to local rules of evidence and other factors, but in any jurisdiction, compelling expert testimony can make or break a case. In this
In my last post in this series, I discussed how the purchase price is structured in cannabis M&A transactions, and how escrow can be used in connection with the purchase price. Today, I want to discuss how adjustments are commonly made to the purchase price, both during the pre-closing period (between signing and closing), and
The year 2020 marked the 50th anniversary of the so-called War on Drugs. As states across the country decriminalize and commercialize legal cannabis, some have declared drugs the winner of the Drug War. There is some truth to this assessment. Two-thirds of Americans currently support decriminalizing marijuana, now referred to by its less racialized, scientific
The City of L.A. has had no shortage of tweaks and changes to its cannabis laws and regulations over the past four years. Admirably, as industry issues have arisen, the City and its Department of Cannabis Regulation ("DCR") have tried to keep pace. At times though, that pace has been glacial much to the chagrin
Just a few days ago the Texas Court of Appeals published an opinion concerning smokable hemp. Before getting into the ruling, let’s review what happened in Texas after enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill. In 2019, the Texas Legislature enacted statutory provisions regulating certain hemp products. Among the statutes was a law prohibiting any state
Last month, I wrote a post explaining some of the issues buyers of cannabis businesses face when dealing with the landlords for the purchased business. In a nutshell, leases almost always contain clauses restricting assignment and subletting, and these clauses will often note that certain changes of control of the cannabis tenant are considered assignments
People familiar with the Oregon cannabis industry know of its strange and lucrative secondary market for cannabis producer licenses. For the past few years, but especially the past year, we’ve helped many farmers buy and sell these licenses (or, more accurately, “interests in successor licenses”). To be clear, most of these sales involve no equipment,
Nationwide, cannabis companies and advocates are hailing the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act as the savior of the future of cannabis (a copy of the bill is here). If the Act passes, we will finally have federal legalization and the consequences of the current federal conflict will end, or, at least be reversed in the
A hemp grower in Jackson County, Oregon has filed suit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) over failure to issue hemp registrations and against the Jackson County Sheriff to prevent the destruction of its hemp. We’ve written on about the difficulties hemp farmers face when law enforcement seeks to destroy, or does destroy, a
