The passage of the 2018 Farm Bill and the legalization of hemp and hemp-derived products has sparked strong business interest from foreign stakeholders. For the past few months, our firm has received numerous inquiries from existing and prospective clients about the legality of importing the agricultural crop and its derived products, particularly hemp-derived CBD (“Hemp-CBD”),
In a recent tweet, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) reminded us that transporting CBD oil into Canada remains illegal. While in most places south of the 49th parallel what CBSA has to say is of little consequence, it certainly matters here in Washington State, where you’re never too far away from the Canadian border.
Yesterday, I came across an article in this week’s Economist titled Going to Pot (*sigh*). The premise of this article is that “a global revolution in attitudes towards cannabis is under way” and it explains how countries in many parts of the world have begun to undertake cannabis reforms in varying degrees. This includes everything
Utah is a unique state for a variety of reasons, but recently it gained additional notoriety because the “world leader in essential oils” (based on global revenue), Young Living Essential Oils, announced it acquired Colorado-based Nature’s Ultra. Nature’s Ultra owns more than 1,500 acres of hemp farms in Colorado and produces “natural, organic, vegan approved,
Marijuana and hemp companies should not ignore the US-China trade war. Numerous products and components in these industries might be subject to increased tariffs of 25 percent. If cannabis companies can’t find new suppliers, those are costs that they will have to bear, or will have to pass on to their consumers. The Office of
Banking, intellectual property, food and beverage (and cosmetics), international trade, domestic trade, state laws, ag production contracts, etc., etc. When it comes to industrial hemp, the 2018 Farm Bill upended all of these things. Our cannabis business lawyers have been busy advising a large number of new hemp and hemp-CBD businesses getting in on the
On April 19, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it would formally update its Policy Manual regarding how cannabis-related activity–even when it took place in states that have legalized the medical and recreational use of marijuana–would impact naturalization. The Policy Manual is self-defined by the USCIS as its centralized online repository for
On Thursday, January 28, we will be hosting a FREE hour-long webinar discussing the business side of medical and recreational cannabis in Mexico. REGISTER TODAY! We are committed to keeping our knowledge of international cannabis news current, and as legalized cannabis has become an international reality, our lawyers in Spain and in China are naturally seeing more of this
We get a ton of questions about whether it’s legal to import hemp into the U.S. It’s a complicated question without a clear answer. We do know that the Drug Enforcement Administration has confirmed that the importation of cannabis plant material that falls outside of the Controlled Substance Act’s definition of “marihuana” (e.g., the mature
We’ve been writing a lot on this blog about the regulation and sale of cannabidiol (“CBD”) products at the state and federal levels. The United States is not the only international actor, however, that is concerned with regulating the sale of CBD products, including CBD-infused foods. The European Food Safety Authority (“EFSA”), the European equivalent of
