We are business and corporate lawyers, not criminal lawyers. This means we know enough about the law to tell someone when he or she may need criminal defense services, but we do not provide those services. Still, the specter of federal criminal charges is ever-present in the cannabis industry. When cannabis clients ask us about
John Oliver, comedian and host of Last Week Tonight, has the right idea here. Marijuana laws do have a big impact, including on environmental regulations and international treaties. Marijuana laws also can empower or disempower drug cartels, increase or lessen the opioid addiction crisis, improve or worsen racial politics, create or reduce jobs, and increase or reduce access
This week in ridiculous cannabis quotes that ignore science is brought to you by Dr. Joe Godfrey, Executive Director of the Alabama Citizens Action Program (ALCAP). Godfrey claims to serve as “Alabama’s moral compass” and the aim of his group is to “protect…children from the dangers associated with immoral behaviors and the temptations they face in
Should we laugh or cry? Comedian Stephen Colbert’s analogy hits the mark on the absurdity of Jeff Session’s cannabis views. Colbert was responding to the following Sessions comment about combatting violent crime: I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake
Yesterday, the Washington Post ran an illuminating and sad little story on government marijuana, which is pot grown under the oversight of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The government marijuana photographed and featured in the story is a sample distributed to a researcher for use in ongoing clinical studies for treatment of military
How refreshing: a politician who thinks sensibly about cannabis. Prime Minister Trudeau is correct: you don’t need to enjoy marijuana or want access to it to support its legalization. Legalization speaks for itself. It’s good for the economy as it creates jobs and generates tax revenue. It’s good for those that use cannabis medicinally and/or recreationally and
White House Press Secretary and public enemy Sean Spicer is anti-science and a liar. His attempt to link cannabis to the opioid crisis in this country directly conflicts with the actual evidence. First off, marijuana is not an opioid. Opioids are highly addictive and neurologically dangerous, whereas cannabis is neither. Second, and as we wrote
Dr. Hurd, the Ward-Coleman Chair of Translational Neuroscience and the Director of the Center for Addictive Disorders at Mount Sinai, speaks here to cannabis’ medicinal properties. She has extensively studied whether marijuana can help ease withdrawal symptoms in heroin users, and her work was published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences this past Thursday. Dr. Hurd’s work
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA)’s recently proposed taking a “less punitive” approach to players’ “recreational” cannabis use, DeMaurice Smith astutely points out that a player’s cannabis use should not simply be assumed to be for “recreational use.” In a recent survey, 42% of surveyed NFL players stated they knew a teammate who became a painkiller
Musician and well known cannabis consumer Willie Nelson is right on the nose with this recent quote. Though legalizing marijuana has undoubtedly increased access to it (and in a multitude of forms that aren’t just smokable flower), making marijuana illegal again in all states would not cause all consumers to stop dead in their tracks
