Congratulations to all of our Canadian readers! Today is the big day! Whether you are a cannabis business owner, consumer, lawyer, doctor, advocate, or even an opponent, you can surely appreciate this historic day. Canada has bucked international trends and become the first North American country to legalize recreational, adult-use marijuana. Canada has instantly
Canada’s cannabis legalization creates yet another wrinkle in the relations between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions harbors a well known hatred towards anything cannabis and he clearly has no love for Canada’s Cannabis Act either. What will this mean though for Canadians who are 100% legally involved in Canada’s
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
We recently wrote about the new Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) rules for marijuana businesses, and observed that those rules were issued with the stated intent to stave off diversion of cannabis. In addition to its public-facing actions, we have seen an apparent shift in internal OLCC review policies and procedures. A few weeks ago,
Applicants who qualify for commercial cannabis licensure during Phase II of the City of L.A.’s cannabis licensing process only have until September 13 to get their applications into the Department of Cannabis Regulation (“DCR”). This phase of licensing is reserved for existing, non-retail, social equity applicants. To get a license during this phase, the DCR
Oftentimes in the marijuana industry, licensees forget or don’t believe that existing federal, state, and local laws apply to their cannabis operations. For example, things like ADA and OSHA compliance get overlooked where the thinking can be, “I’m already violating one federal law, so I don’t have to comply with other, existing federal or state
We’ve written previously about some common issues landlords run into when leasing to cannabis businesses (see links at the bottom of this article). Now that we’ve seen almost a year’s worth of emergency regulations, and the state has released its proposed final regulations, we’ve also seen a variety of cannabis leasing issues crop up. Here
I’ve worked on many celebrity licensing and endorsement deals, and my firm’s cannabis intellectual property lawyers have received countless inquiries from companies looking to partner with one celebrity or another. And while the best of the deals can be very lucrative (and interesting) for everyone involved, plenty of them fizzle out for one reason or
