canna law blog

International Cannabis: Breaking the Law, Staying Honest

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

canna law blog

Young Living vs. doTERRA: Utah MLM Companies and the CBD Race

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,

canna law blog

Cannabis and International Trade: Don’t Ignore the U.S.-China Trade War

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

canna law blog

Take Your Hemp or CBD Company Public on the TSX

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

canna law blog

Cannabis and Immigration: Marijuana Activity a Conditional Bar to Obtaining U.S. Citizenship

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

canna law blog

Mexican Cannabis: The New Legal Landscape

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

canna law blog

Did the 2018 Farm Bill Open the Door to Importing Hemp?

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

canna law blog

Exporting CBD Food Just Got Harder: The European Union Makes a Move

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

canna law blog

The World Health Organization Steps Up on Cannabis

On February 1, it was reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) made some significant and long overdue recommendations with respect to cannabis. Those recommendations have not been formally released, but we expect that to happen soon. If adopted wholesale by the United Nations (UN), the recommendations will have a significant impact globally as to

canna law blog

The California Bureau of Cannabis Control’s Final Regulations Immigration Impact on Foreign “Owners”

On January 16, 2019, each of the three California cannabis agencies dropped a final set of regulations. In many senses, the Bureau of Cannabis Control’s (“BCC”) regulations were the most comprehensive and expansive (we summarized some of the highlights here, and summarized the highlights of the California Department of Public Health’s final regulations here). In