dea letter

Is It Legal, or Not? What to Make of All These DEA “Position” Letters

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seems happy to respond to public and private parties inquiring about the control status of various substances. DEA answers some of these inquiries more quickly than others, and the response letters are usually short and to the point. The letters typically come from the desk of Terrence L. Boos, Ph.D.,

cannabis banking

A New Angle on Cannabis Banking Protections

Sometimes I’ll write about cannabis banking when I’m working on a project for a bank or credit union, but newsworthy developments on cannabis banking seldom seem to drop. Yesterday, however, we had a development worth covering: a Congressional Subcommittee added cannabis banking protections to a critical government spending bill. A GOP-chaired Subcommittee, no less. Marijuana

california hemp beverages

Bad News for Hemp THC Beverages in California

At some point in the last few years, people seemed to realize that getting a cannabis (marijuana) license is not cheap or easy, and that it’s a whole lot easier to sell intoxicating cannabinoid products. You’ve probably read some of our posts on like THCA or delta-8 products, for example. Another extremely popular alternative has been hemp THC

intoxicating hemp products

Bad News for Intoxicating Hemp Products

For years, people have tried to decipher the incredibly poorly worded (I can’t stress this enough) language in the 2018 Farm Bill and what it means for intoxicating hemp products like THCA products or delta-8. In the last week or so, there’s been a lot of bad news for the intoxicating hemp products industry. Let’s take

rescheduling california

What Rescheduling Marijuana Means for California’s Cannabis Industry

California‘s cannabis industry suffers from a seemingly unending list of problems: high taxes, prohibitionist cities, a related lack of retail licenses and oversupply of non-retail licenses, a monster illegal market with no end in sight, burdensome and often senseless regulations, and so on. Unfortunately, rescheduling won’t solve most of these problems–at least not directly. Today

marijuana-specific controls

F*** the Treaties: Rescheduling and “Marijuana-Specific Controls”

Marijuana-specific controls in schedule III? The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) last week to much fanfare. The NOPR would reschedule marijuana, “marijuana extract” and “naturally derived delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinols” from schedule I to schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). But that’s not all. In my very quick analysis

cannabis industry jobs

The Cannabis Industry Now Supports More Than 440,000 Full-Time Jobs

As the 2024 elections draw near, the economic impact of cannabis legalization will likely become a prominent topic in political discourse. With billions in total sales, and millions in tax revenue, the economic benefits of legal cannabis are clear. Beyond the monetary gains, there is a crucial aspect of the cannabis industry that should not

reschedule

Yesterday’s Marijuana Rescheduling News, Explained

Yesterday, some big news dropped that the cannabis industry has anticipated since last summer. I take issue with some of the headlines, so here’s mine: “DEA Reportedly Agrees to Initiate Proposed Rulemaking to Reschedule Marijuana…”. Clearly, I’m a lawyer and not a reporter, but the “Reportedly” and “Initiate Proposed Rulemaking” are key considerations here at

cannabis investment

Foreign Investment in U.S. Cannabis: Five Key Considerations

Cannabis investments are difficult enough when the investor is a U.S.-based person or entity. But things can get immensely more complicated when foreign investment is on the table. Today I want to highlight some of the top considerations for foreign investors and U.S. cannabis companies alike. 1. Legality could cause serious headaches To this day,

cannabis industry

California’s Cannabis Industry Conundrum and the Road Ahead

Despite continuously surpassing every other state with recreational cannabis in terms of total retail sales, California’s cannabis industry has faced continuous and far-reaching issues on multiple levels that have only spread even further. From declining sales that result in hundreds of millions less in total retail sales to a massive illicit market that the state

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