This past year, the cannabidiol (“CBD”) craze has taken the world by surprise, showing remarkable prospect for economic growth. According to BDS Analytics and Arcview Market Research, the CBD market is expected to surpass $20 billion by 2024 in the United States alone. Europe has also witnessed a huge demand for the most coveted cannabinoid,
Two major President Trump-centric events have been unfolding these past few weeks, and each has alternatingly claimed the limelight and been overshadowed by the other. First, we have the ongoing Senate impeachment hearings, which began January 16, and second, phase one of the U.S.-China trade deal, which was signed and made public on January 15.
Last week, amid the impeachment turmoil, President Trump and Democratic leadership somehow agreed on a landmark international trade agreement. The package is generally referred to as USMCA (U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement), or sometimes as NAFTA 2.0. Although the White House has not yet released a final copy of USMCA, its contents are widely known. As expected, USCMA
If you are an eccentric person like me and follow the Oregon Department of Agriculture (“ODA”) on Twitter and have a deep interest in international business (especially the trade war with China), you will have noticed that ODA recently (and proudly) posted something that I see as both positive and negative for the hemp industry:
Over the past few years, our international trade team has advised a rapidly expanding suite of clients on import/export issues related to cannabis. We regularly advise clients on manufacturing overseas, hemp import/export issues, and customs. Currently, we are also working on heady questions surrounding international treaties and cannabis. One thing no one has hired us for yet,
We like to check in from time to time on what’s happening with marijuana legalization around the world. To date, around 40 countries have legalized marijuana for medical use. Many more countries have decriminalized marijuana to some extent, and a few have straight up “legalized” recreational marijuana. Among these bellwethers, South Africa and Georgia allow for possession
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,
