When it comes to canna law on the internet, half-truths might be a bigger problem than outright lies or mistakes. Recently, our sister China Law Blog declared that China Law on the Internet Is All Wrong. As a lawyer who spends a lot of time working on China-related matters, I can confirm that there is
These days, everyone is throwing a hat into the ring of cannabis reform. Many ideas are floating around; some of them are not so hot. Last week’s federal legislative activity is a good example of this. Two things happened on the same day: the Senate unanimously passed the CMRE Act (Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion
Who is a "qualified applicant" under Oregon's new marijuana license reassignment program? First, some context. House Bill 4016, which introduced the reassignment concept, represents a sea change for Oregon’s licensed marijuana industry. The bill presently awaits signature by the Governor, and no one is betting it won’t become law. Our take on all of Oregon’s
Happy MLK Day! 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 1968, two years before President Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). But it is well established that
I recently received a random marketing email in which I was greeted with the word "high" in place of the word "hi". My first reaction was a long, visceral cringe. My second was the thought, "hey, if I - just a lowly cannabis industry lawyer and not an actual cannabis industry stakeholder - am so
In my experience, lobbying is truly an art and not a science, and a very important art at that. And there's been no shortage of cannabis lobbying over the years on both the state and federal level. Typically, cannabis trade groups (and there seems to be one for every cannabis topic now, including a recently
On December 3, 2020, MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) issued a press release regarding a lawsuit filed against the DEA and the Attorney General to “compel issuance of licenses to manufacture marijuana for clinical trials and potential FDA approval.” We have written about MAPS and its 35 years of advocacy and engagement with
Racism in America is not confined to the criminal justice system, it is embedded in all aspects of our society, but the continued killing of Black men and women by police and law enforcement personnel has lead to a breaking point. The video of George Floyd's murder is particularly gruesome and has lead to nationwide
Several months I wrote an article about CBD and false advertising under the Lanham Act and noted an important case on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning damages in trademark cases, Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc. (Supreme Court Docket No. 18-1233). As you may recall, the Lanham Act, also known as the
Last month, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen delivered a now widely shared keynote speech at an Anti Defamation League event in New York, in which he spared no harsh words for social media companies who he claims provide a platform for hate speech and the proliferation of fake news. In his speech, Cohen offered sharp criticisms for
