Cannabis

Email Updates Blogs
Last week, I covered the Oregon Secretary of State’s audit report of Oregon marijuana regulation. On January 31, the same day the audit was released, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) submitted its 2019 Recreational Marijuana Supply and Demand Legislative Report (“Report”). The Report’s key finding is nothing new: supply exceeds demand within Oregon’s recreational market. The impressive part, however, is by how much. The Report specifies that “the recreational market has 6.5 years’…
Chambers USA researches and compiles a list each year of the country’s top lawyers and law firms. This year, Fox Rothschild’s Cannabis Practice Group and 3 of its attorneys made the list! The firm was included in the 2019 Chambers USA guide for Cannabis Law, as were three of its attorneys: Jennifer Benda, Joshua Horn, and Matthew Kittay. Jennifer Benda, a Partner in Fox’s Denver, CO office, is an experienced tax attorney who handles tax…
Congress passed the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (better known as the “Farm Bill”) in December 2018 which removed hemp from the federal Controlled Substances Act. This further resulted in hemp-based cannabidiol or “hemp-CBD” legalization. Despite their federally legal status, hemp-CBD products are now more in question than ever, different state and federal agencies have proposed drastically different regulations throughout every facet of the hemp-CBD industry. If you are a hemp-CBD business, have…
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Being a good hemp and CBD broker requires identifying and taming “unicorn” dealS. I’ll set the stage. You are about to make a lot of money on a very large deal worth millions of dollars. Despite the large figures and the fact that you do not know most of the involved parties’ last names, it seems legitimate. You are friends with your primary contact and have personally spoken with several people who seem to know…
Cannabidiol (CBD) competed with Vitamin C as a top ingredient in new cosmetic products this past year, with promises of having anti-inflammatory effects and other healing properties. Amid the hype, at the end of 2018, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, P.L. 115-334 (the “2018 Farm Bill”) was signed into law, changing the marketing of hemp and derivatives of cannabis and further removing hemp from the Controlled Substances Act thereby making it no longer an illegal substance under…
Back in September 2018, I wrote about how important it was for hemp businesses to carefully plan the routes they would use to ship hemp and hemp products, including hemp-derived CBD. This is because some states are hostile towards hemp and do not recognize a difference between hemp and marijuana. My article was written prior to the passage of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (“2018 Farm Bill”), which expanded federal law to cover a…
Last week, North Carolina regulators followed the lead of public health officials in several other states and began cracking down on CBD-infused products. Cannabidiol, better known as CBD, is one of over 100 cannabinoids, such as THC, found in the cannabis plant. Unlike THC, it doesn’t have consciousness-altering effects and can’t give you a “high.” Many believe CBD consumption has a variety of health benefits, from relieving pain and anxiety to treating epilepsy, which has…
The City of Los Angeles has long endured questions surrounding its elusive Phase 3 licensing process for cannabis businesses. The City completed Phase 1 and 2 licensing without too much crazy change, but Phase 3 is very likely going to be a different story, and will affect a lot of stakeholders for better or worse. On February 8, 2019, the Department of Cannabis Regulation (“DCR“) wrote to the Rules, Elections, and Intergovernmental Relations…
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The Hemp Authority’s Certification Program Has Significant Flaws. I was asked to prepare an open letter to the hemp and CBD industry regarding concerns with the proposed US Hemp Authority Certification Program as developed and championed by the Hemp Roundtable and supported by the Hemp Industries Association. The letter is below. If you share the concerns expressed in the letter I encourage you to reach out directly to the US Hemp Roundtable ([email protected]) and…
As more and more states legalize cannabis in some form or another, and as more and more Senators and Representatives introduce legislation that would relax the federal pot laws, it’s important not to lose sight of reality: cannabis is still a Schedule I drug and is unlawful under federal law. That said, in the years since cannabis has become legal in various states, the federal government has taken an increasingly less active role in enforcement…