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With just under four weeks until Election Day, the push to legalize medical marijuana in Utah continues to progress. After years of failed efforts in the state legislature, the issue is being presented directly to voters by way of Utah Proposition 2, the Medical Marijuana Initiative. If the referendum passes, it will legalize medical cannabis for individuals with qualifying conditions. Eligible conditions include autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and chronic pain where the patient is…
On the eve of the Canada’s cannabis legalization, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) held a teleconference to explain the agency’s enforcement policy and field questions from journalists. The on-the-record teleconference featured the head of the CBP’s Office of Field Operations, which has a staff of 28,000+ employees and an operating budget of $5.2 billion to oversee the agency’s operations at 328 ports of entry and air preclearance locations worldwide. CBP officials confirmed…
  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 become an international leader in marijuana policy. If states like Washington, Oregon, and California are any indication, there will surely…
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 cannabis industry when coming to the United States? The answer came last week, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection…
Today let’s talk about Matthew Price, the Oregon marijuana businessman headed to jail for tax crimes. This story got a lot of coverage when it broke last month, partly because it was the first known tax-related prosecution for a licensed pot business owner, and partly because Price was fairly well known in Oregon. He once sat on an Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) rules advisory committee for cannabis retail, and he owned three dispensaries.…
Back in 2017, the Oregon legislature passed equal pay legislation prohibiting employers from asking applicants about compensation history. The law is known as the Equal Pay Act. This law, like other employment laws, applies to cannabis businesses. The equal pay provision of the law goes into effect on January 1, 2019. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) was tasked with drafting rules implementing the Equal Pay Act and recently released draft rules. This…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’ve probably read about the host of sweeping new laws in California, like its new Internet of Things law, cannabis privacy law, or net neutrality law, to name just a few. California has long been regarded a trailblazer when it comes to making people who are outside of California do things to comply with California law. So it probably comes…
To successfully work in Washington’s regulatory cannabis industry, you need to understand the overlapping levels of laws and rules that are in the state’s regulatory arsenal. State statutes in RCW 69.50 set forth the boundaries of the regulatory system. State regulations in WAC 314-55 fill in the details of that regulatory system. Then there are official Liquor and Cannabis Board guidance documents, administrative cases, and court cases that formally interpret those statutes and rules. But…
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CBD’s legal status is misunderstood and evolving. The legal status of cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the most misunderstood issues in the cannabis industry. A clear understanding of the current legal status of CBD can be helpful in predicting and interpreting the arc of its legal evolution. Despite being relatively straightforward, the law is often misstated by news outlets, federal agencies, and non-governmental organizations. The primary cause of confusion is misuse of the word “cannabis.” In…
week in weed
Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana. Here at The Blunt Truth, we are well aware of the difficulties cannabis businesses face in obtaining financial services.  It turns out, even political groups that support marijuana legalization can face a problem with banks. California marijuana PAC seeking ‘sensible regulation’ launches despite banking challenges (Marijuana Business Daily: News, 10 October 2018) A new cannabis political…