Post-Election Cannabis Wrap – Smoke ’em if You’ve Got ’em

(00:01) [Music] hey everybody Welcome to the postelection cannabis wrap-up webinar smoke them if you got them my name is Vince Sliwoski I’m a lawyer business lawyer here in Portland Oregon and I do a lot of cannabis business work as well as commercial real estate work and other stuff and I’ve also taught Cannabis law and policy or I used to and I’ve just thought a lot about how this stuff works both here in Oregon and nationally so I wanted to introduce myself really briefly as well as my esteemed co-panelist Aron Pelley and Fred Rocafort.

(00:40) maybe Aaron you could start and give a quick self-intro too yeah, Aaron Pelley and I’ve been doing cannabis my entire legal career and since Washington legalized back in 2012 continue to enjoy this work and be doing all things cannabis pretty much entire time really enjoy it hi everyone my name is Fred Rocafort and I am primarily a trademark attorney but work very closely with the rest of our cannabis team on both intellectual property matters and other matters as well great okay so thanks everybody for

(01:22) being here this being recorded if you miss anything and you’re welcome to type in questions in the chat we got a lot of questions before this thing even start started so we’ll try to get to those if we can if we don’t get to your question don’t be discouraged we will try our best a lot of these questions are overlapping and similar were talking sort of internally right before this started and you know in 2024 most of the Cannabis ballot measures didn’t go so well right Florida South Dakota North Dakota failed

(01:52) Nebraska passed but it’s being challenged in the legal system and we had a big shake up federally and I think we’re probably we’re not going to spend a lot of time doing a PO postmort on these things that failed cuz it’s a little depressing we are going to cover them but we are going to spend a fair amount of time talking about the go forward stuff we’ll also talk about a couple of minor things there was an interesting cannabis unionization measure here in Oregon where I am and then there was a Massachusetts

(02:17) psychedelics measure that we might discuss briefly because it’s related in the sense that it’s another Controlled Substances thing and then there was some encouraging local stuff that’s probably under reported for instance in Dallas Texas Deep Red State 2/3’s of Voters approved an initiative instructing local police to refrain from arresting people for marijuana possession misdemeanors that includes simple possession and It also says that Dallas Police shall not consider the odor of marijuana or hemp to

(02:45) constitute probable cause for any search or seizure and it’s interesting that something like that passed so overwhelmingly in such a deep breed State and it’s kind of consistent with current polling right according to Gallup 70% of Americans including 87% of Democrats and 70% of Independents and 55% of Republicans think marijuana should be legal medical use is legal in 38 States not counting Nebraska and 24 of those states which accounts for most of the US population allows for recreational use and for the first time

(03:18) ever in this election both major party presidential candidates supported state or federal legalization and you know Harris had a more developed policy on that but Tr p came out and he supported the Florida measure which failed but he also has said he’s on board with States legalizing and sort of a change in policy tenor there from the last time he came into office so I guess that’s the big picture intro I would like to get into a few of these local measures and the big one was Florida obviously that was the biggest one of

(03:49) all Fred could you tell us I know you’ve written about it but could you explain a bit about Florida amendment Three what it was going to do why it didn’t pass despite netting 55% of the vote just any thoughts would be appreciated here sure and I think the first thing to mention regarding Amendment Three is that the reason it didn’t pass is because a 60% vote was required right so if you look at some of the other initiatives that we’ll be discussing today that that wasn’t the case there is no requirement for such a

(04:23) super majority so I think even though of course from a constitutional law perspective the fact remains it didn’t pass and it’s not the law isn’t going to change anytime soon but from a practical from a political reality the fact is that more than half well over half of Florida voters supported Amendment Three and linking this up with what you just said I mean this a state that voted by quite a significant margin for president like Trump in general if you look at the voting profile of the state

(05:06) it is definitely a red State let’s just say it like it is and yet something I forget the exact figure I I think it was 55.9 55.8% of Voters  supported this this initiative I think that is Meaningful in terms not just of what’s going to happen here in Florida though certainly one would hope that our elected leaders will take note of this if nothing else because for no other reason then the fact that politically it’s an idea that has leg it’s an idea that has

(05:55) support and especially politicians amore local level the folks that have to are engaged in in more competitive races in in certain areas certain cities certain districts this this could well be a political winner for them I think also it’ll have relevance in other states especially those states that don’t have a 60% requirement because I think places and I don’t know what the exact rules are for example in in Texas but to the extent that people in Texas or other states Georgia Tennessee they look at what

(06:39) at what happened in Florid and say well if they were able to get 55% there there’s no reason why we couldn’t do that here in in our in our state so it’ll be interesting to see what impact that has and just one more one more thought before I turn it back to you what you just said about Dallas is it’s very interesting and I think it suggests perhaps that increasingly we might see municipalities and counties obviously they’re Limited in terms of what they can do but this may well be a trend where places

(07:21) that are somewhat different politically than the you know cities and counties that are perhaps more Progressive more open-minded towards cannabis than the state in which they are located might decide that this the path forward to come up with their own initiatives which again are going to be of limited application but which could nonetheless have a real practical impact that measure if I understood it correctly just from reading about it was there was one company that p ped a

(08:01) ton of money into it is that sort of right is where there were there like thoughts afterwards it shouldn’t have been done this way or like if it had been written differently they could have got another three four% of the vote what’s just sort of like a general post I guess on it no I think that’s a great point and I think that not only here in Florida but in in other states legalization Advocates should take should take a close look at what happened here and then hopefully learn from some of let’s not call them

(08:32) mistakes but learn from what happened here one of the one of the interesting aspects of the of the vote here is that the state’s hemp industry which is well established came out against the amendment or at least significant segments of it and there were also complaints CLS that the because the proposed amendment did not have any provisions for home grow that was a bone of contention for some people so it is unfortunate really because I mean it would have been one

(09:16) thing if that vote against the amendment was a solidly anti-cannabis vote right I mean obviously the governor here and his team they just like cannabis period they were very clear about that but they were very they were very they skillfully leveraged some of the opposition that was coming from other places right from like for example the hemp industry right obviously they’re not anti-cannabis generally and the same thing with home grow Advocates so it is unfortunate of

(09:59) course that that part of the opposition was ironically from within the larger Pro-cannabis camp but putting that aside and focusing on the future there are definitely lessons there for advocates in in other states and even here in Florida we go forward also one of the arguments for you know one of the points that was made repeatedly by opponents of the amendment was you know the fact that it’s being bankrolled by big weed the fact that it would entrench the

(10:42) existing medical marijuana providers that it would that it would entrenched them in their in their current dominant position I think that’s a bit misleading in the sense that the amendment did provide I mean the language of the amendment made it clear that the legislature could go out and you know the state could license other actors right so there’s it didn’t limit the ability of the state to bring other participants into the industry so in in practice it could

(11:22) have been a the measure could have democratized the cannabis Market here in the state but nonetheless the Optics were such that opponents of the of the initiative were able to portray it as this money grab and well I mean the fact is right I mean there you can’t get around the fact that it was an extremely well-funded initiative and that a lot of the money was coming from certain actors who did have a lot to gain but lesson learned better to frame things differently and to

(12:09) keep the interests of the of the regular the regular citizen right the folks that are not going to get rich from legalization right but to focus on the regular Joe’s and Janes that are that could benefit from this initiative that’s probably a takeaway for those in other states.
That’s a good summary Fred let’s turn to a couple of the other red states that also failed to pass their initiatives North and South Dakota Erin did you have a chance to look at those and what happened were they

(12:46) Clos anything you got is helpful you’re muted I believe that’s okay thanks yeah no it’s funny that the number that we usually see for states that pass are pretty close to what happened in Florida it’s usually like right in that 56 49 range for passing it legally North Dakota and South Dakota that those numbers did not show up and it wasn’t even I wouldn’t say it wasn’t even close but it was soundly rejected and so the numbers were against in North Dakota where they were going to legalize up to

(13:19) 1 ounce and a household limit of six plants and a pretty robust legalization it went down 59% to 40 so that’s pretty sound rejection and then in South Dakota similar numbers it was about 56% to 43 and also the same thing recreational use for people over 21 the difference being that they were allowing up to two ounces to be in possession but yeah majority of the voters opposed those legalization initiatives it’s kind of a sad in both all three states that we’re talking about anyways in Florida because I think

(13:54) that cannabis in the DNA of Florida there’s a lot of there’s a lot going it’s like California that’s just part of what people it’s a part of the culture there North Dakota South Dakota it’s just really sad because it’s a they would probably grow really amazing weed they have some of the best soil in the world and some of the best sun in the world and even though their seasons are short what they could do with cannabis would be amazing but unfortunately the voters there didn’t want to see it South Dakota is strange

(14:24) to me I remember studying it in the past and South Dakota voters passed adult use and it was kind of un Unwound through litigation with Governor Christy Noam in the courts I wonder why people maybe they just got tired of the fights or something like that I didn’t have a chance to read on it but it’s interesting to me that the state at one point was in favor of it now they’re not in favor of it yeah agreed knows why I should talk quickly about the one that is did pass the initiative in Nebraska passed but is tied up in court

(14:54) so really it’s not just one initiative either I should be clear it’s two that Rasin were voting on they were they were called 437 and 438 and what they would do both and they both passed again is strip out penalties for qualified patients in a medical marijuana program that were in possession of certain amounts of medical marijuana 5 ounces or less but it also created a regulatory body which is you know a big step in any sort of cannabis program especially a medical cannabis program it would create a what they call

(15:24) the Nebraska medical cannabis commission to sort of license and regulate supply chain both measures passed really comfortably I think 71% one and 67% on the other U but unfortunately again these ballot measures are currently being challenged on legal process type grounds the Secretary of State and a former state senator are alleging fraud and malfeasance around Signature Collection even though that same secretary of state had previously certified these very same ballot measures the ballot sponsors last

(15:58) week alleged unethical conduct and kind of pointed fingers back toward the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and the judge in the case it was kind of all pending leading up to the vote said okay I’m going to allow the votes to be counted she excuse me it’s a female judge she rejected a motion by the plaintiffs to even prevent votes from being counted so the underlying legal questions need to be resolved the fate of these measures are in question I read in the Nebraska examiner this morning that we may have a decision about two weeks and

(16:32) the lawsuit could end in any number of ways the judge could side with the plaintiffs and void the election results or the judge could side with the plaintiffs but allow the ballot sponsors to cure it’s a legal term we use the invalidity of certain amounts of signatures in the second phase of the trial or the judge could side with the ballot sponsors which would be nice and leave the election results intact so who knows but this another example of a state coming a long way you know Nebraska and Oklahoma something like

(17:03) this passing at 70% is amazing I remember five six seven years ago when Nebraska and Oklahoma were suing the federal government to shut down Colorado’s program so you know people have changed their minds on this stuff it’s just a question now of like can you do these ballot measures right can they get through the courts I’ve thought a lot about that written about it elsewhere it’s a bigger topic but unfortunately a lot of these direct democracy things get submarined because you know elected officials don’t like

(17:31) them and I think it’s very unfortunate the other thing I wanted to get to quickly and it’s because I’m here is this Oregon measure 119 is it’s kind of a bigger deal it’s a cannabis unionization measure so specifically what it would do is require certain cannabis businesses to enter what we call Labor peace agreements and that’s a term of art it’s a contract essentially which the business promises to stay neutral when Union organizers communicate at with their workers so when I say certain in certain cannabis

(18:03) businesses that certain word is key measure 119 doesn’t apply to producers which is what we call Growers here in Oregon or wholesalers what is what we call Distributors I don’t know what you guys I’ll call them in your States but my understanding is that the carve out for producers The Growers relates to federal law and specifically the National Labor Relations Act as relates to agricultural workers so they just couldn’t do it essentially not sure if the idea with wholesalers was similar measure 119 further provides that the

(18:34) the retailers and processors who are subject to this are required to remain neutral when the organizations the labor organizations are communicating with their employees about collective bargaining rights and that requirement I think is an exposure area for the ballot measure and a potential problem I’ve conferred on this with one of my best friends who’s a First Amendment lawyer at the Oregon Department of Justice as well as another law school classmate of mine who’s been following this and is an accomplished

(19:03) labor lawyer both of them felt that measure 119 is susceptible to a challenge under First Amendment here in Oregon we have a really broad first amendment in Oregon broader than the First Amendment under the Federal Constitution that protects speech in in extremely expansive ways and it would really cut against measure 119 forcing these businesses not to speak right and it’s also susceptible to challenge and my understanding under National Labor Relations Act law that thinking and what I’ve been told is sort of consistent with comments

(19:36) that were filed with the secretary of state pre-election from Oregon business and industry there’s also a lawsuit going on right now in California challenging a similar type of law that might be instructive I meant to look at it prior today’s talk but I just haven’t had time if anyone wants to Google it I believe the plan if there’s an organization called control all destroy anyway let’s ass e this Oregon B measure takes effect and there’s no immediate lawsuit or injunction or anything like that compulsory peace

(20:05) agreements like what’s about to be required here aren’t anything new in cannabis it would be something different here in Oregon but California for example has required these for many of its licenses for many years we had clients struggle with that concept initially and we saw a few fumbles but people eventually adjusted and it’s just part of the industry there so that was that was I don’t know probably one of the bigger ballot measures that passed another one that I thought was teed up but I didn’t really follow it that well

(20:33) was in Arkansas did Aaron did you look into that one it was ballot measure three was that also a court nullified thing or what happened there that is exactly what it was it ended up being that and you know going back to like at the top when you were talking about kind of percentages you know 88% support is what there is for medical right now so I suspect that if ballot measure three in Arkansas did get counted it would have passed all of it had to do with medical marijuana and increasing qualified conditions allowing out of State

(21:04) medically medical marijuana patients to be able to use their cards in their state and but at the end of the day there was a name and title issue with it that the court came up against and so and then and they also held that it didn’t properly identify certain elements that would be stripping away from Congress or the legislature when passing it so at the end of the day they basically it was on the ballot so everyone voted on it anyways well maybe they didn’t but knowing one way or the other that what they said was they’re

(21:37) not allowed to count the votes so we don’t know how well it did or whether it did anything at the end of the day it was they basically came after it for not having clear and comprehensive language that described the bill too bad okay so it’s another try again State and then I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least just talk briefly about the Massachusetts psychedelics measure Fred did you read up on that one what happened with that one yeah a little bit well so this this initiative would have

(22:09) essentially legalized possession of psychedelics in Massachusetts it would have authorized sales at authorized locations but it failed looking here 56 almost 57% voters voted against it I think I mean you look at Massachusetts right I mean it would seem based on other indicators that if there’s you know one state or one of a handful of states that would that would be amenable to such an initiative you know that would be it and even then the numbers were again you know 50 57% still quite a

(22:55) significant margin  against the initiative so I haven’t really looked into into why that that was the case what what is it about Massachusetts that that goes beyond what the the political n numbers would suggest generally but I think you know one lazy conclusion might be that yeah the people just aren’t ready for a first session initiative at least at least at the at the state level in in in Most states that said I did I did see that in some of the in some municipalities there was a

(23:41) majority that that voted in support of the initiative that’s you know not terribly surprising but still once again it indicates or suggests that more local action might be might be the way forward at least for now when it comes to this kind of initiative oh I think you’re on mute got it thanks Aon hey yeah I don’t want to spend too much time on that just because this cannabis non psychedelics but it’s just interesting to see it’s kind of with the trend of these things not working out

(24:14) this cycle I think I want to reserve the better part of the hour anyway to talk about Federal stuff because that seemed to be the bulk of our questions prior to the webinar and I’m seeing a few in the feed now too and I’m just going to open it up to you guys I mean statistically speaking first of all I guess I should say probably half the people that are watching this right now are feeling pretty sad right now right because statistically speaking half the people didn’t get the results they wanted to see at the presidential level and with

(24:44) the Senate and everything else but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to be a bad thing for cannabis policy and I’m just really interested to hear what either of you has to think I know we haven’t even had a chance to talk about this internally yet maybe Aon could start I yeah if I was a single issue voter and that was the only issue that I was worried about neither candidate was terrible for cannabis really right so that I think that Tr p came out not that long ago in essentially saying I support schedule

(25:17) three and I support in fact the he supported the Florida bill he did throw in there at the end that he wanted to make sure people weren’t smoking it in public and he wanted to avoid getting fentanyl laced marijuana which if you Snopes that that’s actually just completely not a real thing you can’t you can’t cons e fentanyl through smoking it in cannabis it would destroy it so it’s but it’s setting aside that still at the end of the day you know he’s in my opinion he said those things that that say that

(25:49) he’s supporting  Schedule III that’s huge for the Cannabis industry I think Vince you’ve written a lot on this and know a lot about how  Schedule III will impact cannabis on the tax side of things just too big not to want to happen for the cannabis industry so that makes me hopeful will it move at the same Pace or with the same you know a lot of what these things I feel like have hang on is also who he appoints to do what needs to be done and so just him saying that alone might not be enough I mean it you know it can be undermined

(26:18) very quickly by appointment so I guess in some ways I’m still nervous on how that’s all going to play out any big picture of thoughts from you Fred well just one on the fentanyl front you know this was actually one of the well it really close so we can all see it yeah one of the advertisements of the many not just for this campaign but this was actually in support of amendment three and you know it’s mentioning the fent you know basically suggesting you know this measure will help deal with you know

(26:53) fence and a Lac marijuana but I think you know witty observations aside I think I was we’re going to be doing another postelection webinar on Monday which is going to be looking at trade issues and other issues relating to the other inter International considerations and one of the things that that I’m looking at is the relationship with Mexico going forward and any discussion about that very quickly comes to fend and whether it’s apolitically expedient term to be

(27:46) throwing around or when you know whether there are in fact legitimate concerns and I think there are some legitimate concerns no doubt about it but it is clearly something that one way or another is going to imp government policy right so to the extent that this Boogyman is out there it could have an impact you know of some sort but to your to your question I guess my own take on this and along the lines of what Aaron said right I mean you really have to be looking at the at the

(28:21) people that are going to be tasked with executing policy I think that goes really for everything right I mean I think that my let’s just say that there is a possibility that once he is sworn in after perhaps an initial period of activity I could I could certainly see a scenario where Tr p decides that he’s you know going to take a step back and enjoy you know go play golf it’s Etc right I mean reelection is not really at least for now is not something that’s being discussed

(29:08) but in any government right I mean obviously this happens and I suggest or I suspect I should say that that the most likely scenario would be that that the people that are making the decisions are less let’s say less amble to the prospect of legalization than he is maybe not right the fact that I mean in the same way that that he has turned out to be an advocate of swords and the fact that he for you know whatever reasons came out and issued some relative you know

(29:51) some strong support for the initiative here in Florida there might be others in his in his orbit right that that might actually also have that that point of view so it’s not it’s not a given that that the execution at the working level is going to be negative for the prospects of further legalization but I suspect that that’s really going to be it I think that you know we should be worried of focusing too much on what the new president wants and need to really look at what’s going

(30:30) to be happening with the Departments also and this just a general comment and you know as a former Federal bureaucrat there is a gap certainly between what gets discussed and decided at the at the top levels of government and how that is executed for a variety of reasons so that’s another thing to keep in mind that as orders make their way down through the bureaucracy priorities change things get interpreted in certain ways so all of this to say that

(31:12) that we need to have a really comprehensive we need to look at the government apparatus in a comprehensive way not just focus on what is being said at the at the White House and I think that’s especially true with this new administration because we know that during the last Tr p presidency there were a lot of extemporaneous comments tweets Etc and that we’re really going to have to look very closely at things beyond the headlines to have a sense of what’s going to

(31:52) happen yeah good thoughts from both of you I agree especially with what you both said on a lot of it depends on who ends up being in the administration right like we just don’t know yet who gets in Tr p’s ear and who the appointees are and I it’s interesting you’ve already seen a few things come out like RFK was in the news saying he was promised control of the FDA and we’ll see if he gets it but you know he’s been tweeting things like I found this tweet I wanted to read it because I thought it was fun he said the FDA’s war

(32:20) on public health is about to end and this includes aggressive suppression of psychedelics and on and on and on and other things that can’t be patented by big Pharma so you know cannabis can be patented to some extent it has been but generally speaking it’s you know outside of that regime and what we have going on in the states is far outside that regime and you would think that would be a pretty good thing for cannabis we wrote about him incidentally back when he was a candidate and gave him an a or an A+

(32:47) or I can’t remember we gave him for cannabis he’s a big Pro cannabis guy so having somebody like that in charge of HHS and FDA probably be a good thing I saw we got questions Aaron talked a little bit or alluded about the rescheduling process we got questions about that I’m not going to read them all off they’re all sort of similar but they sort of say like what do you think’s going to happen now with  Schedule III and blah blah blah my gut is it’s going to stay on track I can’t see them kind of going back and

(33:15) unwinding that process it’s a Ru making process for anybody hasn’t following it really closely and they’re kind of at the point now where they’ve lined up all the people to testify whether they’re in favor opposed to marijuana being moved to  Schedule III and just for a big big picture overview that again does not legalize marijuana right it’s still a controlled substance but it’s a substance that now is not totally verboten and is on sort of a lower status of control and can be written with the doctor can be used

(33:45) with a doctor’s prescription which we don’t have now and is a lot easier to research and yada yada so I think you know if that process goes forward and if it does in fact go to  Schedule III for all of you business owners out there you’re going to be happy because your margin should get better overnight assuming you’re paying your taxes right like 280e won’t apply to you and I think with this new regime coming in even if they don’t pass some sort of federal bill which I kind of don’t think is going to be a priority for anybody to

(34:14) to deschedule marijuana you might still have some sort of like relaxed fundamental categorization of it moving from one to three I’m still hopeful that happens that that’s just me do either of you guys have a thought or an opinion that or do you have you read or thought otherwise no I agree with that I think that pretty much I Echo everything that you would – I find it unlikely that we’re probably going to get anything legislatively but I do think that  Schedule III is the biggest

(34:49) thing that could happen and I’m really hopeful for it to happen because I think it’s going to have a huge impact on the industry and I agree that I don’t see that being Direct fail I think you know how much we see in terms of new initiatives of further progress that’s a different story but I think with something that is as advanced as rescheduling I think it will I think it will proceed and you know as a trademark nerd it also means that that trademarks are fair game right so as far as trademark

(35:23) lawyer is concerned and that’s what as legal as it can get pretty much so I forgot about that that would change that h because you’re now you’re lawfully in Commerce or you could be lawfully in Commerce I don’t think any of our clients will be but you have the potential to be at least exactly interesting but you’re not lawfully in interstate commerce isn’t that the rub Fred or I know this a bit of a degression but how will it help those people because won’t the standard still be you don’t have lawful use

(35:48) in Commerce across state borders well so the and again this where you start getting into what the questions of what practice is going to look like and how USPTO is going to deal with the with businesses right that in fact are not operating lawfully but at least in terms of the actual the actual substance right I mean if you look at and we you know I’ve blocked about this if you have a substance that is classified or you know is scheduled like a scheduled three substance

(36:28) that is lawful you know for purposes of registration right so you have you know there’s like a I think codeine is Schedule III there are some others right and there are you know registrations for if you fold in RFK who’s saying he’s G to let everything go through you might have a world where this real like I mean I know it’s all speculation but it’s interesting yeah I mean it really is I mean and I think it’s on a hopeful note right I mean let’s just again play with that example let’s say you know RFK

(37:04) ends up heading the FDA or you know HHS or some new department that is created you know to you know Accord him the respect that he deserves as a public servant if he were to you know then then the desire of that one person to see change come through could have a significant impact right I mean it is true that government especially the federal government can be sclerotic you know at times and it can be difficult to get things done but at the same time right if when

(37:47) you have agency heads that focused on a particular issue and empowered to act on it then then you can see things happen I mean I think unfortunately some of the examples that we can think of this are not necessarily are of a different nature so for example we could expect you know DHS to be given very clear mandates and powers to do certain things with regards undocumented migrants Etc but the same can be true of something like cannabis right I mean if someone like RFK Jr or someone else is given I

(38:38) mean as someone pointed out in the comments I mean Elon is obviously a cannabis Advocate and it is expected that he will have some form some sort of voice in the in the new governments right so yeah it may just happen that you have enough interest  in in making this in actually changing the rules of the game when it comes to cannabis the flip side of that that I would say though is when you look at the folks in Congress in particular and having to go back to their districts and I mean

(39:17) for some of them it might actually be a winner you know to say look I’m in favor of easing up on cannabis but there are going to be some of them might realize that well it’s better to maintain that hard line so even if you have all this Traction in Washington it there might still be push back you know from some of the folks in government so it’ll be interesting to see what happens our own Dan Harris I think that’s our Dan Harris ask on here and it’s really related to what you’re talking about what’s going to happen

(39:53) internationally with cannabis I ass e if it goes to  Schedule III imports and exports I think it’ll be easier to Import and Export cannabis because it’ll have what we call Cam currently accepted medical use right and under treaties I don’t want to get we into it’s a like complex legal regime and Analysis but you’ll have something that fits under the UN single convention protocols as well as domestic protocols and you could at least import export medical marijuana in a way that you can’t now and that’s my understanding of

(40:22) it you wouldn’t be able to probably again like export your wreck flower from Washington State to Denmark or whatever you want to do it’s a little bit different but it’s going to ease it up to some extent and then somebody else had a question early on thanks for the first question of the live webinar about hemp where he said do you Tanner bar said do you see it likely that the farm bill will pass prior to the Congressional change in January my answer to that is who knows honestly who knows it seems sort of unlikely I was

(40:53) talking to a lobbyist who’s actually working hard on this in DC a couple of weeks ago and she said who knows and I just think that’s sort of the consensus I think it’s really really hard to pass anything through Congress right now but you know it’s looking like possible very possible that we’ll have a unified House and Senate and presidency in which case it might pass next year the farm bill by the way is a big deal it’s not just the Cannabis thing right like people we always talk about it in the context of hemp and everything else

(41:22) but that’s just such a tiny little bit of the farm bill so it is important that it passes it deals with the nation’s entire food Supply and unlike a lot of cannabis bills like safe Banking and stuff that tend to get like back burner and don’t ever really have to pass for any sort of urgent like National reason Farm Bill does and it’s overdue so do I think it’s likely it will pass prior to January I don’t know like flip a coin and truly nobody knows but do I think it’s going to pass next year yeah I do think it’s going to passing sure because it

(41:52) has to pass I Aaron’s laughing am I right Aaron oh yeah you’re right that anybody that says that they know for sure is probably not being very truthful it’s that yeah trying to sell you something probably trying to raise money trying to get money for their hemp company we’ve been talking a lot about marijuana not about hemp I’m not hating on the hemp people at all but I’m just saying like that’s just a tea leaves thing and I wouldn’t I wouldn’t bet on it either way I think a lot of people also asked about Federal legalization and I

(42:21) feel like it is the same but I was I was on a panel a long time ago with one of my mentors and this was back in this was back in like 2011 and somebody in the audience asked when do you think Federal legalization is going to happen and I said in in the next five years and the guy that was sitting next to me my friend he leaned over and said oh you’re on the five-year plan too and afterwards I said what were you talking about the five-year plan he said well I’ve been on the five-year plan since

(42:49) 1974 makes sense that it’s always five years away because it always feels like just Within Reach but not quite yet so I remain on The Five-Year Plan since then since 2011 and so I will continue to renew my Five-Year Plan each year yeah I myself have been on the five-year plan for a long time and wrong I used to take more authoritative I was like it has to happen you know look at all these medical States and like back in when 2018 the 2018 elections were awesome those midterms and 2020 all these midterms and the and the

(43:23) federal elections have been really good for cannabis right up until this one as far as initiatives and ballot measures I think something I wrote about recently on this stuff too is you’re kind of seeing the end of that whole play Most states can’t even do ballot measures in the initiative so all these states that we’ve been talking about today that are trying to do things they’re just like trying again and again and again and their legislatures haven’t got around to it but a lot of the states these days are coming online you know

(43:50) buying through the legislatures big States like New York and Minnesota and things like that and even if I should tell people you know have heart even if some of these initiatives fail there’s still good things going on programs are still coming online right like this year Minnesota hopefully the roll out is good it could be a big year for Minnesota Delaware could be a big year for Delaware hopefully New York can get its whatever almost spare stuff together but you know like things are things are moving forward moving

(44:18) forward everywhere all around the country still it’s just that we had a couple of states most spectacularly Florida I guess this time that weren’t able to get something over the V Fred I see you nodding oh no I subconsciously I guess I was I was okay agreeing I think that Federal legalization is kind of a double edged sword anyways in a lot of ways it’s you know we’ve really enjoyed in these states that we’re in a lack of real competition at the federal level which would invite that least

(44:53) in some sense or another and so like that that the fact that we have these protectionist bills that have created these states that are have been great but they’ve also been kind of terrible right because now it’s like basically being in Wisconsin and not being able to sell cheese outside of Wisconsin you’re going to have the best cheese in the world but who cares and I think the West Coast we grow the best weed in the world but we can’t give it to anybody else and if we could it would just change everything and it’s like we

(45:18) don’t produce too much cannabis we just produce too much cannabis for our state and that’s and once you know that opens up I think it’ll change a lot yeah I agree we always talk about that like it makes sense for cannabis to be grown in certain places just like it makes sense to grow oranges in Florida and not Alaska right like in a big Warehouse under lights and all that kind of stuff that sort of what’s going on in cannabis and all these vulcanized programs and state markets it’s really bizarre it’ll be interesting when things

(45:45) open up and there’ll be interesting work for you Fred with like applications and people trying to protect certain strains and “terroirs” however you pronounce that word but again we’re all on this five-year plan I just you know I’ve been like you Aaron I’ve said it forever and ever and I can see thanks guys for the questions on that like several of the questions are when is it going to be legal and when is it going to happen and I don’t know I think we’re being honest with you when we say nobody knows and

(46:10) you shouldn’t trust anybody who says that no I don’t think Donald Tr p knows I don’t think anybody knows yeah people are asking too specifically about CBD which is you know I ass e you’re talking about hemp Drive CBD you’re asking about access to banking ability to advertise let’s say you’re talking about hemp CPD it’s a little bit nuanced you know hemp based CBD is not quote unquote illegal under the farm bill so you should be able to bank and you should be able to do all kinds of things the area that crosses a line at least in the

(46:45) FDA’s reading of the food drug and cosmetic Act is you can’t put it in food and you can’t put it in drinks you can put it in topicals you can do other things with it so I don’t know if you’re if you’re telling me you’re like a CBD beverage business and if FDA doesn’t like it Banks being conservative and won’t Bank you then maybe you know nothing’s changing anytime soon but the West has been very protectionist about that too right like in our laws and bills the industry itself yeah talk about that I mean certain states have

(47:14) been really protectionist about it including very Pro-cannabis States I mean I can speak to Washington where they just said if there’s any traceable amount of THC whatsoever you are now within our closed loop legal system of iPhone 502 and which is the name of our legalization system which is recreational marijuana so if you want to sell anything has any traceable amount of THC unit has to be sold through our rec stores and in within our whereas before they kind of traded anything under .3% H or any CBD anything that was

(47:45) coming in they were just like it’s just another ingredient you know they didn’t treat it like anything but that but you know as the market developed and more intoxicating products kind of were hitting and competing with it was it was the cannabis industry that kind of came out against the hemp industry and said we need to pass laws to stop this from happening I mean we being frank we saw the people that were behind the bills it was it was it was the Cannabis industry yeah it’s funny that cannabis and hemp have always been at odds I mean

(48:14) they’ve been at odds since early days I remember back in 2016 or 15 when both were first legalized here in Oregon and they were suing each other about like cross-pollination like unfortunately it’s the one plan and we’ve made this arbitrary bifurcation as far as legal standards of which one is hemp and which one is cannabis it’s caused chaos since the beginning of time I feel like but yeah so I mean I hope we answer that we answer that question as best as we could with the with the knowledge that I think

(48:43) we have and Aaron’s very right it’s a state-by-state thing he talks about you know what you can put in Washington you come down here in Oregon and go to the Portland pickles baseball game and drink a THC Seltzer and that’s just fine no as long as attempt arrived it’s just like each state is a snowflake it’s these classic Laboratories of democracy questions everybody’s trying to come up with their own Solutions some of it sort of Mak sense some of it just doesn’t make any sense like that THC Seltzer wouldn’t be legal under the Food Drug

(49:11) administrations reading of the FD&C act again but states are just like well you know we’re going to allow this one and maybe not that one and you just have to kind of be knowledgeable about the jurisdictions in which you’re selling this stuff and how it all works what permits are required etc etc and farm bill passes and I don’t know I mean it’s just on top of the question of whether it passes the next question what’s going to be in it right and people have been up in arms about this Miller Amendment for example which would close

(49:41) what people call like a truck sized intoxicating hemp loophole right like a lot of people say Mitch and everybody else weren’t trying to like legalize hemp so you could go buy [ __ ] at the gas station to get high right they were trying to make textiles and fiber and Grain and animal feed or whatever ever and we need to fix that so I mean there’s possibly could like the farm bill possibly could you know change all of that and then and then you get to the question top of that is well will it even be enforced so does it even matter

(50:09) and you know like the FDA has been down on the food and beverage thing since the 2018 farm bill but there’s been no enforcement so who cares and it’s you know I don’t mean to give you guys a bunch of lawyer like it depends in who knows answers but that’s really what it is and cannabis CL policy is the most nebulous area that you could possibly sort of try to navigate as far as understanding it’s easy to understand what’s allowed it’s harder to understand what matters and what’s going to be enforced at least that’s how I always

(50:42) think about it did either of you guys or either of you have an opinion why some of the main cannabis stocks tanked like there was like some that lost like 37% the day after and I mean everything we’re saying is true is kind of educated yeah why there was such a such a knee-jerk reaction in that area do you guys have thoughts on that I do I want I’ve been talking too much so Fred you go no I was just going to make a you know slightly tongue and- cheek comment that there is at least one company that is looking at you

(51:15) know having invested Millions trying to get the Florida initiative passed and that didn’t go through so there was there’s definitely that feeling of okay that you know that was a lot of money and we have nothing to show for it so at least in that particular case that that might have been part of part of it yeah I mean I just chalk it up the cannabis stocks don’t make any sense and they never have and whenever I see I mean they never make sense as far as like valuations and they never makes sense as far as like what’s actually

(51:48) happening out there you see like these like sort of Minor Adjustments to Federal lawn policy from time to time that I personally we don’t make a lick of difference for cannabis companies don’t make them more profitable don’t do anything and then these stocks will like go way up and then they’ll come back down or you’ll see things like this election happen which I don’t know if it’s necessarily a bad thing for cannabis I mean I guess maybe people were hoping that Harris would win and she was more forceful about let’s have a

(52:16) federal Bill to you know deschedule this thing entirely whereas Tr p is more of a yeah I think it should be legal and states rights but he didn’t have it as like as big of an Express plank in his platform so maybe that’s what people are reacting to but I mean cannabis stocks in general are just most of them are penny stocks they’re wild they go up they go down they just I don’t know I think that you would just again be grossly sort of speculating to say why this or that happened with any of

(52:49) them what else we got I can go through all the questions we got beforehand I don’t want to a lot of you guys ask very specific questions about like certain States and what rules are going to happen say in the 502 program or whatever and were happy to talk about that stuff maybe in another webinar or we’re always writing about that stuff on our blogs and that kind of a thing but I really want to keep this one a little bit focused on the election results and what we see happening in in 2025 let’s see here people are asking when

(53:21) will cannabis be moved to schedule Fe we already talked about whether it still will and how that’s working that that’s another one that’s a little bit up in the air some people were disappointed recently that hearings were postponed a bit which I’ve explained to others is just a sort of a normal litigation and procedural thing people were up in arms about it but hearings were postponed till early 2025 so we now know with absolute certainty that it’s not going to move to  Schedule III before Biden leaves office right it is going to

(53:52) be under this Tr p regime if it happens the hearings will be the hearing dates aren’t fixed yet the judge asked people all of the participants who were picked as witnesses there are 25 of them he asked them when will you be available in January and February so they’re sorting out those dates as well as related issues of conflicts of interest and stuff I ass e the hearings will start at some point in late January or February the hearings could stretch out for a while I doubt there’ll be just a day or two and the judge could you know

(54:22) take a few weeks off from time to time and take rest and request additional supplementary information yada yada after the hearings are concluded the judge might take a while to make a decision as judges often do I mean sometimes judges take weeks sometimes take they take months to consider and this a huge huge record right like I think there were I’ll get it wrong something like 70,000 comments and all these written submissions and all this testimony that’s about to happen and then it could get litigated

(54:50) like even if the judge says all right yep I agree with HHS  Schedule III is what we’re doing somebody could sue right and they could try to stop it and they could try to do this try to do that so you asked for a date a when date my if I were just if you forced me to guess if you like held me at knife point and said you have to pick a day Vince I would say April or May right but I’ve also been A Five-Year Plan guy the federal stuff forever and remember so there you go that’s my answer and I don’t know if you have anything to say there

(55:21) Aaron no I’m right there with you it really is still a bit of a guessing game unfortunately Ely it’s a guessing game so it’s a good question whoever ask that question it’s a great question it’s a question I ask myself all the time and I wish I knew the answer but I don’t I’m looking at anything else that we should get to do you guys have any sort of closing thoughts I know we’re right up against the hour and I don’t mean to not answer a lot of these questions that were submitted but they’re also similar and

(55:47) they tend to overlap a lot no I somebody asked about rescheduling changing CBD business owners access to banking sales and II still just kind of with that I mean hemp a lot of people are going and saying here here’s my I’m doing hemp in the way that the FDA is already approved I’m just doing topicals and banks are still kind of unilaterally like you know what we don’t want to figure it out and just saying no to everybody all the time and so the unfortunate truth is that you know we in states where we have

(56:18) legalized cannabis almost every state that I know of has some sort of Credit Union that fills the Gap but getting access to Wells Fargo and traditional Banks it’s just going to be it’s going to be until they feel safe which is going to be some sort of federal legalization measure or some sort of federal bill that passes for banking specifically Banks it’s just not worth the trouble over time yeah banks are really conservative you guys I mean they just are they’re some of the more heavily regulated

(56:48) entities the bank secrecy Act is intense if you really get in there and start looking at that stuff and the federal government has done a really bad job you know we had all of this guidance going back to the coal memo in 2014 and at that time we had guidance for banks it’s called the fincen regulations and all the coal memo has gone away and a few other things have changed but that that guidance is still there and it was written when there were hardly any programs online a few medical marijuana ones and brand new adult use one’s

(57:13) coming online and it just never got updated and it’s just kind of an odd regime like it’s a bank 10 years after that guidance is written is still looking at a market and at banking operators it’s just looking at such a radically different ecosystem in the Way businesses are done there’s very little in there for hemp we actually helped the federal government write the hemp ones by the way but even those in my opinion are a little bit outdated at this time so Aaron’s right like there are federal cred or excuse me there are

(57:42) State chartered Credit Unions that tend to fill the gaps there are a lot of banks that will Bank CBD businesses but there are others that won’t and it’ll probably be like that until we have the big change federally and this stuff is just descheduled entirely I agree with that okay guys I think that I mean that’s it’s 12:58 and went through a lot and I’m sorry if we didn’t get to everything but we tried to get to everything and thank you very much for tuning in we will make the replay of this available on our blog and on our

(58:16) YouTube channel and we encourage you guys to follow us and reach out if you have any other questions thank you everybody for tuning in we’re going to sign off [Music]