On June 14, 2022, Harris Sliwoski attorneys Fred Rocafort, Jihee Ahn, Paul Coble, and Vincent Silwoski presented a webinar entitled Protecting, Monetizing and Enforcing Cannabis Intellectual Property. Attendees submitted many great questions before and during the webinar, but our IP attorneys were not able to answer all of them. In this post, we will answer
High profile lawsuits to end cannabis prohibition are nothing new. We’ve covered efforts going back several years, though none of these has succeeded. A recently announced attempt, though, may be the best chance yet– especially given the changing environment with cannabis legalization in so many states; and especially given Constitutional jurisprudence relevant to those changes.
Just last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s holding that the 2018 Farm Bill legalized delta-8 THC products derived from hemp. In the Ninth Circuit’s view, “the plain and unambiguous text of the Farm [Bill] compels the conclusion that the delta-8 THC products before us are lawful.”
The SAFE Banking Act has languished in Congress since early 2017, a victim of political gridlock and division, as well as political wrangling over broad approaches to cannabis legalization. We last covered the SAFE Banking Act in February, when it looked as though 2022 would be the sixth year in which this bill would die.
Last week, a coalition of major food and beverage companies (self-identified as “consumer packaged goods companies”) asked Congress to do more about the growing number of copycat THC edible products and counterfeit trademarks piggybacking off of their well-known items. The letter was signed by the Consumer Brands Association and fourteen other associations and companies, including
With so many new proposals for reconceptualized federal cannabis legislation floating around Congress, this summary should help clarify the differences to distinguish each bill from the others. This post will cover the MORE Act, the PREPARE Act, the States Reform Act, and the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act. Part two in this series will cover
Foreign investors (often in countries that prohibit cannabis) are eager to invest in burgeoning state cannabis markets in the U.S. This can often go very wrong, especially if the investor gets bad legal or tax advice. Our cannabis attorneys and our foreign direct investment team have seen these problems crop up again and again. Today,
On Thursday, a bipartisan collection of congressmen introduced a bill that would require to US Attorney General to lead a commission to oversee the process of making recommendations for a cannabis regulation system comparable to the current alcohol regulation system. The bill, called the Preparing Regulators Effectively for a Post-Prohibition Adult-Use Regulated Environment Act (PREPARE
Federal cannabis legalization will happen. It is no longer a matter of “if”, but of “when.” So what do prohibitionists really hope to accomplish? A few weeks back, the House of Representatives again advanced the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity and Expungement Act), which puts cannabis one step closer to federal decriminalization (more on that here).
Last week, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson called a vote on emergency legislation that aimed, in part, to give the Council the authority to shut down any business that gifts marijuana. Although the proposed bill did not pass (by only one vote), Mendelson’s bill reveals ongoing tension regarding D.C.’s legally questionable cannabis “gifting economy” and
