An issue our clients have encountered in a variety of transactions, including basic product purchase transactions and intellectual property licensing transactions, is that the California rules governing commercial cannabis licensees currently do not allow the exchange of free samples between licensees. We are unaware of an industry in which the wholesale purchaser of a large
For the past three years, I have taught a class called “Cannabis Law & Policy” at Lewis & Clark Law School here in Portland, Oregon. It’s a seminar that meets for two hours a week for upper level students. Per the syllabus, learning objectives for that class are: 1) students should be able to understand
The prelude to Phase 3 licensing in the City of L.A. is finally upon us. Today, L.A. will begin accepting applications for Phase 3 social equity applicants for retail and delivery in the City. Specifically, Phase 3 social equity applicants will have from today through July 29th to prove up their Tier 1 or Tier
It’s no secret that multiple state-by-state operators are building their cannabis empires through aggressive mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”). Last year, our cannabis business attorneys closed more than $100 million in cannabis company acquisitions, and that shows no signs of stopping in 2019. Cannabis M&A is not your run-of-the-mill business dealing though, and working from boilerplate,
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’ve written time and again about the looming terror of Prop. 65 violations for cannabis businesses when it comes to packaging and labeling their products with the correct safe harbor language. The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (a/k/a Prop. 65), requires the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) to publish a
Three years ago, I did a TedX Talk titled “High Dive: Are We Creating Big Marijuana?” The issues I raised in my talk are still relevant today, especially as more states legalize. Basically the new question around state cannabis legalization is who should get to profit from it–big business or those most negatively affected by
Back in 2015, I wrote on this blog that we were never not litigating cannabis business disputes. That is still true today, although the forums have changed: matters are now resolved through the court system more frequently than before, when private arbitration was preferred. This is partly because the prevailing view among cannabis business attorneys
Our California cannabis attorneys have been getting inundated with packaging and labeling review since each California cannabis licensing agency adopted its final rules in January 2019, and even before that when the rules were under consideration. One thing that many California cannabis companies—and especially cannabis companies from other states who are stakeholders in California—often overlook
On January 31, the Oregon Secretary of State released an audit of Oregon marijuana regulation. The audit is a hefty 37 pages, but its core findings are listed right there on the cover sheet: “Oregon’s framework for regulating marijuana should be strengthened to better mitigate diversion risk and improve laboratory testing.” Now: we would all
