Similarly to many career politicians who now support criminal justice reform after decades of supporting the most unjust policing and sentencing laws, President Joe Biden has been notably lacking in keeping the pro-cannabis and criminal justice reform promises he ran on in the contentious and chaotic election that was 2020. Along with still referencing the
On February 7, 2024, California Assembly Member Aguilar-Curry introduced AB 2223. The bill, if passed, would significantly change the state’s cannabis and hemp industries – for better or worse. Today, we’ll take a look at how AB 2223 could change both the cannabis industry and hemp industry in the Golden State. First though, a brief
As America celebrates and commemorates Black History Month, it’s important to remember exactly how Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system in our country. From the crack vs. cocaine sentencing disparities to the fact that Black Americans are on average four times as likely to be wrongfully convicted of a serious
California publishes quarterly data concerning its “enforcement” efforts against the illegal cannabis market. Over the last couple of quarters, I’ve gotten in the habit of analyzing this data (see here for Q3 2023, and here for Q2 2023). I’ve been blogging here since 2018 and my opinion is that the state is doing very, very
The 2024 Oregon legislative session kicked off yesterday. It’s a short session this year, with adjournment sine die set for March 10. Whatever hasn’t passed by that day will be scuttled to 2025, or fade to black entirely. This year, we have but one cannabis bill to cover– unless you count HB 4093, which would
Two of our international cannabis lawyers, Vince Sliwoski (business) and Adams Lee (international trade), recently joined the Simply Trade podcast for a lively discussion on the international cannabis trade. You can hear that free-ranging, informative conversation at either of the following links: Apple Podcasts Spotify As explained in the Simply Trade show notes: This episode
For anyone who missed it last month, we have published a full recording and transcript of our webinar titled: “Attorney Insights on the Cannabis Industry 2024: Ask us Anything.” You can view the recording and transcript here. The webinar was well attended, and attorneys Vince Sliwoski, Griffen Thorne and Jesse Mondry answered a variety of
Every election cycle, we grade the many of the presidential candidates based on their track record with cannabis (here’s our summary of 2020’s main candidates). We kicked off 2024 with our analysis of incumbent President Joe Biden (Grade C), and followed up with Republican challenger Ron DeSantis (Grade C+), who recently dropped out of the
Welcome to part three in our series on cannabis and those who wish to lead us. In the first two posts, we covered Joe Biden (we gave him a “C”) and Ron DeSantis (R.I.P.; we gave him a “C+”). Today’s subject is Republican candidate Nikki Haley. She’s still around as of this writing and I’m
Cannabis regulation efforts are usually sold to voters or legislators with the express promise that a state will be able to milk the new industry for all it’s got through cannabis taxes. Don’t believe me? Well, look no further than California’s landmark Proposition 64, also known as the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana
