Monday, September 30, 2024

Leafly’s top 5 autoflower seed banks of 2024

Find the best autoflower seed banks of 2024. Leafly reviewed popular seed banks & chose top picks for different needs & budgets.

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Thursday, September 26, 2024

Streaming for stoners: 8 new shows to watch high

Leafly looks at eight of the highest entertainment streaming online now.

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Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Watch: Wiz Khalifa world record joint-smoking attempt

Our clothes won't ever air out.

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Join us this Weekend at the Oregon Coast! NW Cannabis and Psychedelics Law Conference

We are headed out to beautiful Cannon Beach, Oregon again this weekend for the Sixth Annual Northwest Cannabis and Psychedelics Law Conference.

Harris Sliwoski attorneys Matt Goldberg and Vince Sliwoski will attend the conference in person this year. Nicole Gossett-Roxbury and Jesse Mondry plan to attend remotely. The event kicks off tomorrow with a welcome reception sponsored by Harris Sliwoski LLP.

To view the program brochure, including the full schedule of events and presentations, please go here. For any last-minute takers, we were just told that registration remains open through Thursday, September 26, at 12pm PT. The sign-up link is here!

We look forward to connecting with friends and colleagues — especially with the weather report looking so great in Cannon Beach. See you all soon.

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Tuesday, September 24, 2024

New York’s essential cannabis experiences [September 2024]

Here’s your up to the minute tracker for cannabis-friendly experiences throughout the Big Apple.

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Discover New York’s dankest cannabis brands [September 2024]

Hot flower, edible, and concentrate brands to check out on your next dispensary visit in New York.

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Florida Cannabis Legalization Vote Q&A

Florida is set to vote this coming Election Day on the Marijuana Legalization Initiative, also known as Amendment 3. Voters in the Sunshine State will have the chance to amend Article X, Section 29 of the Florida Constitution to allow the possession, purchase, and use of marijuana products and marijuana accessories. The proposed initiative would also allow Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers and other state licensed entities, to acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute marijuana products and accessories.

For the initiative to pass, a supermajority of 60% must vote in favor, and the vote is expected to be tight. The most recent published poll results indicate 64% support for Amendment 3, with 9% undecided (and a 3.4% margin of error). Other recent polls, however, suggest that the 60% threshold will not be reached.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the rest of the state’s governing establishment oppose the initiative and have established a curious alliance with the state’s hemp industry to stop the measure. For its part, the legalization camp has its own odd bedfellow in the form of Palm Beach resident Donald Trump, who has voiced his intention to vote in favor of Amendment 3 come November. Even during a year that has thrown up more than its fair share of surprises, it would be quite the story if by putting his finger on the scale Trump helps bring about a legalization victory the likes of which we have never seen.

It is far too early to call the race, but the impact of a favorable vote would be enormous. With more than 22 million people, Florida would become the second-largest regulated market for legal cannabis in the country. No wonder this has been by far the most expensive legalization campaign ever, by far, with most of the money going towards a yes vote.

Needless to say, cannabis businesses should be paying close attention on November 5. We will continue to follow this critical story and keep you posted from down here in the Sunshine State.

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Monday, September 23, 2024

USC Trojans launch first-ever Cookies CBD partnership

Leafly’s September hemp report has novel cannabinews you can use.

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Cannabis Receivership: FREE Q&A Webinar Tomorrow!

Register Here

The cannabis industry is struggling. High taxes, market saturation and competition from outside sources have created a challenging business environment. Unfortunately, when a marijuana business fails, bankruptcy protection is off the table. As a result, the business is left with two options: to liquidate without court supervision, or state-court receivership.

We have spent a lot of time around cannabis receiverships recently. Our cannabis business and debtor/creditor lawyers have represented failing businesses, creditors, receivers, and a number of parties attempting to buy assets out of receivership sales.

Receivership is an equitable remedy, which means courts and receivers have significant leeway in the receivership process. Some states have receivership statutes, while others do not. Sometimes, clients are surprised to learn these facts, or to learn that many experienced debtor/creditor lawyers have never been in or around a receivership.

Please join cannabis insolvency lawyers Ethan Minkin (Arizona), Matthew Goldberg (Oregon, Washington, New York), and moderator Vince Sliwoski (Oregon) for a fascinating Q&A session on cannabis receiverships. Ethan and Matt have over 50 years of debtor/creditor lawyering experience between them, and Vince is a business lawyer who has counseled many clients through financial restructuring and business dissolution.

The conversation should be lively and educational, and the panel will take questions during the presentation– as well as any submitted in advance. So please send those along when you register!

We look forward to seeing you on September 24, at 12pm PST.

Register Here

NOTE: We have decided to also stream this Q&A live on LinkedIn and our Facebook pages.

Until then, for more on cannabis and receiverships, check out the following:

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Friday, September 20, 2024

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Federal Cannabis Roundup: Nixon, DEA, Tobacco-Hemp . . . and the DOOBIE Act (*sigh*)

Last week, I wrote a round-up post on Oregon cannabis. This week, I thought I’d drop a line on the federal happenings. Which are quite a few.

The Nixon tapes

This was a fun piece of news, unearthed by a Minnesota cannabis lobbyist while poring over hours of recently released Oval Office tapes. Ernesto Londoño then broke the story on September 14th for the New York Times, which you can read here. In short, Nixon conceded that marijuana “is not particularly dangerous,” despite calling the plant “public enemy No. 1” only two years prior. And he opined that punishments ought not be so serious for possession of the plant.

I say this news is “fun” because it’s more interesting than surprising and I doubt it will have much impact. Nixon was a mean old liar, and one with an animus toward certain groups of people. I also don’t think this revelation will persuade the vocal, diminishing minority of prohibitionists to change their minds. I like it anyway, especially as cannabis history nerd. We were right!

DEA embraces two-step review for marijuana rescheduling

This one is important, in my opinion. It relates to the method of analysis DEA must undertake when determining whether a drug, including marijuana (and psilocybin, and any other verboten substance), has a “currently accepted medical use.” In April, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) put DEA in a box on this one, explaining that the old, five-part test was “impermissibly narrow.” OLC thus endorsed the two-part test. On September 17th, DEA assented to the test for Schedule I review.

The two-part test bodes well for DEA’s rulemaking, now underway, to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act. How do we know? Well, the Schedule I stans don’t like it, for starters. This is because, under two-part review, a drug can have currently accepted medical use: a) even if that drug hasn’t been approved by FDA, and b) even if the drug wouldn’t pass DEA’s scrapped five-part test. So, more runway.

DOOBIE Act on the way?

I’m embarrassed even having to type that. But yes, some Congressperson named a federal cannabis bill the “DOOBIE Act,” unfortunately. With a press release and everything.

This proposal would prohibit federal agencies from denying security clearance and employment to people simply because they have used marijuana. In my reading of the actual bill, these agencies could still ding an applicant for past marijuana use, but they couldn’t “base a suitability determination . . . solely on the past use of marijuana by the individual.” The word “solely” needs to go.

Because this bill applies only to “Executive agencies” under 5 U.S. Code § 105, it also wouldn’t have prohibited, say, Joe Biden from doing his “doobie” staffers dirty, which he definitely did.

FDA gets the nod on tobacco-hemp

I like the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and often send people thataway. On September 16th, CRS published a new report titled “Legal Effect of Marijuana Rescheduling on FDA’s Regulation of Cannabis.” Here are my extremely condensed takeaways:

  1. FDA can authorize tobacco products containing hemp-derived cannabinoids (although it hasn’t yet). This is because hemp is not a controlled substance.
  2. Marijuana, even at Schedule III, would still be banned as a tobacco additive (and probably always will be). This is because FDA would need to approve specific cannabis medicines first, and it never does that for botanical drugs.

Here we have one of those cognitively dissonant outcomes often seen with the cannabis plant. As a reading of law it makes sense, but as to policy it’s nonsense. You can thank Richard Nixon and other cannabis heels for that.

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Monday, September 16, 2024

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Good Grades: 3 things I can’t smoke without

Good Grades asks cannabis lovers to name the three things they need before their sesh.

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Friday, September 13, 2024

More Bad News for Intoxicating Hemp (California, Missouri, New Jersey)

Last week, I wrote a post entitled “Loper Comes For the DEA. Will it Matter Though?” In that post, I discussed a brand new federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case that concluded that hemp derivatives like THC-O are not controlled substances. The hemp community has largely celebrated this as a win, even though as I wrote in that post and back in July, none of this really matters if Congress bans intoxicating hemp products – which looks like it will happen.

On the heels of the Fourth Circuit case, a few things happened that don’t make life easier for people who want intoxicating hemp products.

Probably the most significant of the bad news, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued emergency regulations to ban a series of intoxicating hemp products. A lot has been written about these regulations, but it’s worth pointing out that California’s hemp law (AB-45) was already not very favorable to smokable hemp products.

For example, AB-45 already prohibits smokable hemp products. And more notably, it defines THC to include THCA and “any tetrahydrocannabinol, including, but not limited to, Delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol, Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and Delta-10-tetrahydrocannabinol, however derived”. In other words, all of the various things that are defined as THC – and there are many – must already not exceed 0.3% in the aggregate. This means that a host of products were already de facto banned in the state.

While, to be sure, the new emergency regulations take things farther, I think it would be inaccurate to describe this as a “sea change” in how hemp products are regulated in the state. What remains to be seen is whether CDPH or other agencies ramp up enforcement in any meaningful way. It’s California, so my guess is no.

California’s not the only state taking aim at intoxicating hemp products. Just the other day, Missouri’s Attorney General created a new task force to crack down on intoxicating hemp products. New Jersey’s Governor also signed a bill cracking down on intoxicating hemp products.

All this just adds to the long list of states and municipalities that had been going after unregulated intoxicating hemp products prior to the Fourth Circuit’s decision – often for violations of state or local law which are unlikely to be impacted by the federal case. And of course, if Congress gets around to banning intoxicating hemp products, that will likely be the last straw for many of these products.

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Thursday, September 12, 2024

Legalization drives down cannabis prices, analysis finds

Cannabis freedom saves consumers money, researchers find.

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Oregon Cannabis Roundup: Fall 2024

Now that Labor Day is in the rear view and people are paying attention again, it seems like a good time to drop a line on Oregon cannabis. Here are some highlights, to launch you into fall.

OLCC’s 2024-2028 Strategic Plan

A draft of the 2024-2028 Strategic Plan was first circulated at a Commission meeting in June, and finalized and published sometime last month. The Plan covers both alcohol and cannabis, because OLCC regulates both of those things. The Plan is probably very interesting and salient to various people inside of the Commission; less so to most of the rest of us. Still, it contains a couple of highlights for the local cannabis industry.

License reassignment program

Finally. The Plan sets forth a delayed initiative to “establish criteria and process for marijuana license reassignment that offer opportunities for qualified members of underserved communities and those historically affected by cannabis criminalization.” That longish, unpaced sentence belies a welcome sentiment.

The license reassignment concept came in through House Bill 4016 in the 2022 legislative session. If you are interested in the background on this, please read our 2022 posts here and here. And also this post from February, where I explained why this should be coming in 2024. My guess (just a guess) is that delays on this stem from OLCC conferral with the State DOJ, to try to minimize lawsuit exposure. Regardless, let’s hope the Commission can find a way to get more diversity into the license pool.

Improved licensing processes

The Plan adopts a goal to “improve licensing processes to eliminate unnecessary burden on applicants, increase efficiency and reduce wait-times [sic].”

I love this goal too. Even in the best of times, OLCC marijuana licensing has been a three- to four-month process. In the worst of times, it bogged down entirely due to a combination of application volume, insufficient staff, and excessive application requirements. Today, we’re somewhere in the middle, with applications submitted on or before June 3 being assigned to investigators (a typical license issuance might occur 6-8 weeks after such assignment).

Related to this “optimization” goal, OLCC began a phased rollout of its new Cannabis and Alcohol Management Program (CAMP) earlier this spring. We all sort of hated it– the system was cumbersome and frustrating in various ways. Things seem to be improving somewhat, though, and OLCC has been responsive in working through snags.

In all, we’re happy to see a focus on pace and refinement. Buyers and sellers of Oregon cannabis licenses would welcome “increased efficiency and reduced wait times” now that OLCC is no longer taking new marijuana license applications in almost all categories. Closing on these transactions is pegged directly to OLCC license issuance, which extends nearly all sales timelines (and sometimes tanks them).

Rules review

Another goal that jumped out for me was OLCC’s initiative to “conduct a multi-year review and revision of our rules structure and language [with industry parties, including licensees].”

You may appreciate that most or all OLCC cannabis rules did come through a review and vetting process. Many collaborators weigh in prior to rulemaking, at the legislative level, and others through rules advisory committees (RACs) hosted by OLCC. Things change, though, and in my opinion many of the OLCC marijuana rules—where the Commission isn’t pinned down by statute—could use a second look. In the most general sense, I’d like to see cannabis in Oregon regulated more like alcohol, despite the chain-of-custody difference. It can be done.

OLCC in general

From this observer’s perspective—informed in part by talking with Commission staff—things have settled down inside of OLCC. Staff will acknowledge that last year’s La Mota and liquor-hoarding scandals cast a pall over the Commission, but the shadow has passed (even with La Mota hanging onto its licenses). The Commission’s marijuana side, by all reports, is very collaborative, better systematized, and back to “business as usual”– especially now that licenses are capped.

Speaking of license caps, last month a RAC convened on the topic. I’ve explained that, due to House Bill 4121, we probably won’t see an increase in producer or retailer licenses in most of our lifetimes. That is still the case. Wholesale licensing, on the other hand, could open up as soon as next year, and processing perhaps in 2026 or 2027. The way the statutory language is written, OLCC would open the portal when licenses dip below certain counts. Interestingly, OLCC will have to come up with application denial criteria for relevant, previous applicants.

Elsewhere, OLCC is still active in the Cannabis Regulators Association (Cann-Ra), an organization for cannabis regulators all around the United States. Historically, Oregon has purchased a statewide membership, which means that OLCC and other Oregon agencies regulating cannabis – including OHA, DOR and ODWR – are also at the table. Hopefully OLCC finds a way to export some of its best ideas (e.g. early removal of resident-ownership requirements; interstate compact promotion), while leaving off some of the historically frustrating strictures (e.g. individual plant tagging; opaque and inconsistent enforcement rules and policies).

Ballot Measure 119 – cannabis labor peace agreements

This one is on the November 5 ballot as an initiated state statute, and I’m surprised people aren’t talking about it more.

If Measure 119 passes, every cannabis retailer and processor will be required to submit a signed labor peace agreement to OLCC. Measure 119 would not apply to producers, wholesalers, or labs. (Note: I’m a union guy, but I also believe the requirement for producers, in particular, would be a shit show. It’s neither here nor there.)

Compulsory peace agreements aren’t anything new in cannabis, although it would be something different here in Oregon. California, for example, requires labor peace agreements for many of its cannabis licensees, and has for many years. We had clients struggle with the concept initially, and we saw some fumbled roll-outs, but people eventually adjusted.

Measure 119 further provides that retailers and processors would be required to remain neutral, under the peace agreements, when labor organizations communicate with employees about collective bargaining rights “with any licensure or renewal application.” That part is not exactly clear to me; let’s see how it goes.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 spent a good deal of money to get Measure 119 on the ballot, rounding up some 163,000 signatures when only 117,173 were required. This follows on a stymied effort to get House Bill 3183 passed last year, which would have accomplished the same thing legislatively.

I’m not aware of any polling on Measure 119, but my guess is that it will pass– Oregon is a “union” state, consistently outpacing the U.S. at large in per capita union membership. So this is one to watch.

Rumblings on legislative priorities

The 2025 Oregon legislative session will be a long session, stretching from January into the summer. The deadline for pre-session bill filing isn’t until December 13, so we are a ways out on seeing any concrete proposals of record. That said, CIAO keeps its legislative priorities list updated here, and it has been in active discussions with membership as to what folks would like to see.

Here at the firm, we’ve been talking with a few private parties on special interest bills, and you can expect to see certain cannabis bills that expired in 2024’s short session to be revived. We’ll check in on all of this in January, as we always do here on the blog.

In the meantime, here’s to a beautiful September, with nobody’s farm smoked out by the fires. See you soon.

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Friday, September 6, 2024

Loper Comes for the DEA. Will it Matter, Though?

Earlier this week, the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case entitled Anderson v. Diamondback Investment Group, LLC, handed the DEA a big loss when it comes to hemp – at least for now. In Anderson, the court held that DEA’s interpretation that a host of hemp-derived products were illegal was essentially wrong. Today I want to talk about why Anderson is – and isn’t really – important.

Anderson, as I wrote more than a month ago, was based in relevant part on Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a 2024 US Supreme Court decision. Here’s what I said then:

Loper ended what’s often referred to as “Chevron deference.” To vastly oversimplify, Chevron deference required federal courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, even if courts did not agree with those interpretations. With Chevron dead, courts will not be required to defer to agencies and courts can decide, on their own, whether an agency’s interpretation was within its statutory authority.

Ever since Loper was decided, there have been a million different theories on how it could affect the cannabis and hemp industries. [For the record, I agree with folks like Shane Pennington who argue that Loper will not affect rescheduling.]

When it comes to hemp though, Loper may in theory have more of an impact, as my colleague, Vince Sliwoski, argued prior to Loper‘s publication. That’s because the DEA routinely issues what amount to opinion letters as to whether this or that cannabinoid is or is not a schedule I narcotic. Under Loper, if there were any statutory ambiguity, the DEA’s interpretation would no longer be given deference. That’s not to say that the DEA might not prevail, but it means the deck would be less stacked in DEA’s favor.

And that is essentially what happened in Anderson. Without getting into the factual weeds of the case, an employee had been terminated after drug tests allegedly showed marijuana use. She sued, in part claiming that she used legal hemp-derived products. The court ultimately held that she had failed to provide they were legal because she did not introduce sufficient evidence that the hemp products had less than 0.3% delta-9 THC.

However, for purposes of this post, the important part of the Anderson decision was its discussion of the 2018 Farm Bill and DEA’s interpretations of the legality of various cannabinoids under that law. One specific cannabinoid that the court analyzed was THC-O, which does not occur naturally but is created from hemp derivatives.

For years, there has been a heated debate as to whether hemp-derived products like delta-8 THC are considered “hemp” under the 2018 Farm Bill. The debate centers around whether these products are “synthetic” because they are derived from other cannabinoids. This is important because DEA considers synthetic cannabinoids to be controlled substances.

A few years ago, in AK Futures LLC v. Boyd Street Distro, LLC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the issue (albeit in a much different context), and held that delta-8 THC products derived from hemp with less than 0.3% THC were legal under the 2018 Farm Bill.

Importantly, Anderson found AK Futures persuasive, holding:

“we think the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the 2018 Farm Act is the better of the two. And we’re free to make that determination ourselves, despite a contrary interpretation from the DEA, because we agree with the Ninth Circuit that [the 2018 Farm Bill’s definition of hemp] is unambiguous . . ., and because even if it were ambiguous, we needn’t defer to the agency’s interpretation [as a result of the Loper decision].”

Crucially, Anderson held that “rather than originating from organic matter—like the hemp-derived cannabinoids at issue—, synthetic cannabinoids are just that: compounds manufactured entirely out of synthetic materials.”

To summarize all of this, according to the Fourth Circuit, if a product is derived from hemp and does not contain more than 0.3% THC, it is legal. This includes things pulled directly from the plant, or things like delta-8 THC which may take other processes to produce. But, any cannabinoid derived purely from synthetic materials would not be considered “hemp” under the 2018 Farm Bill.

All of that said, Anderson probably won’t matter much. As I noted in in July:

[A]ll of [the discussion about Loper] is almost certainly academic – at least if Congress passes the Farm Bill with proposed amendments that would ban intoxicating hemp products. If that happens, the DEA won’t need to opine on the legality of many (if not most or all) intoxicating hemp products. The law would have already changed to prohibit them expressly.

But what happens if the upcoming Farm Bill doesn’t contain bans on intoxicating hemp products? Things will almost certainly not end there. The FDA, which has been hostile to many hemp products since the day the 2018 Farm Bill was passed, could simply claim products are adulterated or misbranded and seek to pull them from the market. It does this with kratom, which is an unscheduled plant, and there’s no reason why it could not do it here (subject again to FDA having to prove its case in a post-Loper court challenge).

And, as I noted, federal law isn’t the only thing that matters:

Things are also not looking great for intoxicating hemp products at the state and local levels. The State of Virginia, for example, just levied nearly $11 million in fines against more than 300 retailers allegedly selling state-prohibited intoxicating hemp products. Out west, the Colorado attorney general sued a business in June for allegedly selling super-high THC products marketed as federally legal hemp.

We also assume that there is a lot of local enforcement actions that go under the radar – things like state or local public health officials pulling products from shelves or warning stores. That can be harder to track if for no other reason than it doesn’t often make the news. We also assume that a lot of the reports concerning enforcement against alleged illegal marijuana stores or operators, including in places like New York, may miss the legal nuances between intoxicating hemp products and illegal cannabis products.

In sum, the intoxicating cannabinoid industry just won the battle with DEA, but it’s probably not going to win the war.

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Thursday, September 5, 2024

Study shows CBD can increase cannabis’ psychoactive effects

Wait, CBD might get you hogher?

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Emerald Cup 2024 winners and where to find them

Cali weed stays winning.

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Cannabis Receivership: FREE Q&A September 24

Register Here

The cannabis industry is struggling. High taxes, market saturation and competition from outside sources have created a challenging business environment. Unfortunately, when a marijuana business fails, bankruptcy protection is off the table. As a result, the business is left with two options: to liquidate without court supervision, or state-court receivership.

We have spent a lot of time around cannabis receiverships recently. Our cannabis business and debtor/creditor lawyers have represented failing businesses, creditors, receivers, and a number of parties attempting to buy assets out of receivership sales.

Receivership is an equitable remedy, which means courts and receivers have significant leeway in the receivership process. Some states have receivership statutes, while others do not. Sometimes, clients are surprised to learn these facts, or to learn that many experienced debtor/creditor lawyers have never been in or around a receivership.

Please join cannabis insolvency lawyers Ethan Minkin (Arizona), Matthew Goldberg (Oregon, Washington, New York), and moderator Vince Sliwoski (Oregon) for a fascinating Q&A session on cannabis receiverships. Ethan and Matt have over 50 years of debtor/creditor lawyering experience between them, and Vince is a business lawyer who has counseled many clients through financial restructuring and business dissolution.

The conversation should be lively and educational, and the panel will take questions during the presentation– as well as any submitted in advance. So please send those along when you register!

We look forward to seeing you on September 24, at 12pm PST.

Register Here

In the meantime, for more on cannabis and receiverships, check out the following:

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Wednesday, September 4, 2024

The Future Looks Better for Cannabis Reform

Earlier this year, the DEA initiated rulemaking to reclassify cannabis as a schedule III narcotic. This is probably the biggest news in cannabis reform since the Controlled Substances Act became law.

A lot of folks had hoped that cannabis would be rescheduled in advance of the 2024 election. Those hopes were dashed when the DEA scheduled a hearing for the proposed reclassification about a month after the election. My colleague, Vince Sliwoski, wrote a post on DEA’s hearing announcement here.

Since DEA announced the hearing in late August (and frankly even before then), I’ve seen a lot of speculation that if President Trump wins, he would derail the rescheduling. That didn’t seem likely given that President Trump (while not very good on cannabis reform in his first term) hadn’t really indicated an intent to derail the rescheduling process– if he even could.

But in the last few weeks, it’s become apparent that no matter who wins, the future will look better for cannabis reform. We’ve already known that Vice President Kamala Harris has changed her views significantly over the years, and now supports cannabis reform. But in the last few weeks, RFK Jr. (probably the most pro-cannabis reform of the three candidates) suspended his campaign to endorse President Trump. Now, President Trump has come out himself in support of cannabis reform.

Over the weekend, Trump announced his support of Florida’s proposed cannabis law amendment, though he mentioned favoring laws that restricted public consumption. Then, Trump appeared on Lex Fridman’s podcast where he discussed the benefits of medical marijuana and opined that cannabis should be legal and regulated. Trump is expected to lay out more detailed proposals regarding cannabis reform in advance of the election.

Circling back to the issue of whether Trump would derail rescheduling, I don’t think that is very likely– even if he could do that come January 2025. Yes, it was proposed by President Joe Biden. But beyond that, there does not seem to be any real motivation for him to try and derail the process when even he acknowledged that the majority of Americans support cannabis reform.

Putting aside the presidency for a minute, the bigger issue for cannabis reform is whether Congress can put a meaningful piece of legislation in front of whomever is President. The President only has so much authority on this topic, without an act of Congress. And despite popular support for cannabis in the last few years, Congress has proven completely inept at passing any kind of legislation.

While cannabis reform has traditionally seen broad Democrat support, congressional Republicans are starting to turn around. For example, South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace has been a leading voice for cannabis reform. And with Trump throwing his weight behind cannabis reform, you can expect to see more and more congressional Republicans jump on board. As friend of the Canna Law Blog, Hirsh Jain, Tweeted:

IMO Trump’s stance on cannabis will have a greater impact on GOP officials than voters
Which is great b/c support of GOP politicians is critical to pass reform in IN, NH, PA, WI, etc in 2025
Politicians seek “safety” in the political tribe & are wary of public deviation from it
In other words, voters are already there, and congressional Republicans (as well as state-level counterparts) needed a nudge to get on board. That nudge is here, so you can expect to see a lot more support in the near future.

The bottom line here is that, for the first time since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act, both of the main candidates for the presidency favor cannabis reform. While a lot of the details will be ironed out in the coming weeks and once the winner takes office, a lot of folks in the industry (which has faced an uphill battle since day one) undoubtedly feel hope for the future.

The post The Future Looks Better for Cannabis Reform appeared first on Harris Sliwoski LLP.



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Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Star signs and cannabis strains: September 2024 horoscopes

Anyone else ready for autumnal weather, star gazers? It's nearly cannabis harvest season, and the moon and planets are working overtime to bring us new cosmic opportunities. So we bring you 12 new strains for each sign to make the most of September.

The post Star signs and cannabis strains: September 2024 horoscopes appeared first on Leafly.



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