Our California cannabis lawyers are seeing a major spike in mergers and acquisitions (M & A), and it's time to discuss what's on the horizon for changes of ownership for some California cannabis businesses. In every cannabis state, M & A is no breeze because the regulators almost always require pre-approval of the transaction or
We handle a lot of cannabis M & A in our Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland offices. Over the years, it’s become pretty clear that in robustly regulated cannabis states, the secondary market for buying and selling businesses really peaks (after initial legalization) as local and state governments finally begin to settle their
We had a blast celebrating all of the big wins for cannabis on this blog this past year. Looking back, it was a monumental year for cannabis reform, both in the United States but also internationally. At this point, it feels like there is no realistic scenario in which prohibition carries the day: Federal legalization
Medical marijuana is legal in Montana. Unfortunately, that does not prevent local employers from terminating workers for legal, off-work use of marijuana in the state. In 2010, while already employed by Charter Communications, LLC, Lance Carlson was issued a medical marijuana card under Montana Medical Marijuana Act to treat chronic low back and stomach pain.
With the roll out of the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act ("MAUCRSA"), our California cannabis attorneys see all kinds of agreements between and among licensees. From IP licensing to white labeling to distribution contracts, we're beginning to see people emerge from the shadows and enter into written agreements with each other, which
Unless you've been completely out of the loop, you already know that many, many people are in a race to submit their California state temporary cannabis license applications before December 31 of this year, which represents the "drop dead" date for cannabis temporary licenses. Add to that the regulatory curve balls thrown by the California
A backlog of cannabis license applications has no doubt happened in almost all of the other states that have medical and adult use licensing. You wouldn't normally think this is such a big or concerning development, but in cannabis licensing delays can mean angry investors, a complete 180 for your business plans and even insolvency.
It's not a normal day in California if there aren't around 50 cannabis bills floating around Assembly halls. And this legislative session did not disappoint in getting certain much-needed cannabis legislation passed (though some important legislation also bit the dust). All in all, there is a lot of legislation and it can be difficult to
Recently, the City of Portland announced that it would lower cannabis business licensing fees. Most notably, retail license fees have been reduced from $4,975 to $3,500, in line with other license types. That is still too steep (especially considering the state licensing fees), and although the City has cleaned up its process over the past
In addition to our California cannabis business attorneys' work on corporate, finance, and transactional issues with marijuana-related businesses, we also work with our firm's foreign direct investment group. As California has implemented MAUCRSA since January 1 of this year, we have been getting tons of interest and questions in and about foreign investment into California's booming
