The WNBA star can appeal, but a prisoner swap now appears to be her best shot at freedom.
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Cash rules everything about mainstream America’s sudden acceptance of weed—and from boardrooms, to courtrooms, to living rooms, Berner is at the intersection of it all.
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The California Senate took new strides in the effort to control the steep increase in drug overdose deaths this week with the passage of legislation to authorize safe consumption sites in the state. The measure, Senate Bill 57 from Democratic Senator Scott Wiener, was passed by the Senate on Monday after receiving the approval of the California State Assembly a month earlier. The bill now heads to the desk of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom for consideration.
“Every overdose death is preventable,” Wiener said after the legislation was passed by the state Assembly on June 30. “We have the tools to end these deaths, get people healthy, and reduce harm for people who use drugs. Right now, we are letting people die on our streets for no reason other than an arbitrary legal prohibition that we need to remove. SB 57 is long overdue, and will make a huge impact for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.”
SB-57 authorizes four local jurisdictions to operate overdose prevention programs, also known as safe consumption sites or safe injection sites, as a five-year pilot program. The legislation provides approval for such facilities in Los Angeles County and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. A statement from Wiener’s office noted that the city councils or board of supervisors in all four jurisdictions had requested to be included in the legislation.
Safe injection sites offer places where people can inject or otherwise consume drugs under the supervision of trained healthcare professionals, who can intervene in the event of a drug overdose or other medical emergency. The facilities also offer other services including referrals to drug treatment, housing assistance, and HIV prevention services. Safe injection sites have operated successfully in Switzerland, Canada, and eight other countries for years, with no overdose deaths among people using the facilities recorded.
The legislation passed this week also includes protections for professionals who work at the authorized safe injection sites, exempting them from professional discipline, civil liability, and existing criminal penalties due to good-faith conduct and actions under the overdose prevention program. The Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California would still be permitted to take disciplinary action against licensed medical professionals under the bill.
Wiener’s bill was passed as California and the nation continue to suffer the effects of an epidemic of overdose deaths, largely fueled by the opioid crisis and the introduction of fentanyl into the illicit drug supply. In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 107,000 people died of a drug overdose last year, setting a grisly new record for drug-related deaths in the country. And in California, overdose deaths spiked by 83% from 2017 to 2020, according to CDC data.
Late last year, civic officials in New York City announced that the city had opened the first publicly recognized overdose prevention centers. Since then, research published by the American Medical Association found that New York’s safe consumption drug sites have decreased overdose risk, encouraged people not to use illicit drugs in public and provided ancillary health services to people who use illicit substances. As in other safe injection sites around the world, no overdose deaths have occurred at New York’s facilities, leading city leaders to call for nationwide support for overdose prevention centers from the Biden administration.
But opening safe injection sites has been a challenge in many communities because of provisions of federal law that prohibit providing a location for the use of illegal drugs. Shane Pennington, an attorney with the law firm Vicente Sederberg LLP, said that action on authorizing safe consumption sites across the country is needed at the federal level.
“The Biden administration promised to bring harm-reduction strategies to the fight against the U.S. overdose epidemic. Safe consumption sites are one such strategy that mountains of evidence proves saves lives,” Pennington wrote in an email to High Times. “The fact that the Federal government is inexplicably dragging its feet in implementing that strategy should not cause the states to do the same. Safe consumption sites save lives. I hope the Governor signs the California bill into law and other states pass similar life-saving measures as soon as possible.”
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Many folks in the cannabis industry – especially legacy operators – have little to no experience with corporate governance. I don’t mean to say that they don’t know how to run a business; they likely do. What I mean when I refer to corporate governance is the actual process of adhering to governance agreements, getting required votes, papering corporate actions correctly, and so on. This is an issue in a regulated market where operators are essentially forced to contend with organized entities that must be governed appropriately.
Last year, I looked at why corporate governance is important. In that post I talked about some common corporate governance mistakes. Today I want to get into detail on some of the common corporate governance mistakes our cannabis lawyers routinely see in the industry.
Entities are formed by submitting documents to a state agency. In California, for example, the filing of articles of incorporation creates a corporation. Depending on the state and entity type, the incorporator or organizer must identify how many shares of stock the company can issue in this initial filing. If the entity wants to issue more stock than the initial filing authorizes, it must amend the initial filing.
The problem is that cannabis companies often ignore their initial authorization caps and issue stock above and beyond the cap. This is a huge problem! It could mean that the additional stock is unauthorized and even invalid, exposing the company to liability from the persons holding the unauthorized stock. There is a very simple way to resolve this: keep an eye on stock caps and amending articles of incorporation to allow more stock. Unfortunately, for many cannabis companies, this basic corporate governance feature often gets overlooked.
Similarly, let’s say a corporation’s articles only authorize common stock but the board decides to issue preferred stock. If the corporation doesn’t amend its articles – which happens a lot – the issuance is put into question. That will be true even if the corporation has amended its shareholder agreement or other governing documents.
Most corporate decisions require a majority vote. When drafting a startup’s governance documents, the owners routinely ask to make certain decisions subject to unanimous or super majority (2/3 or 3/4 depending on how you define it) votes. Usually higher thresholds are reserved for big-picture things. But not always! If the company is supposed to get super majority approval to take on new debt over $100,000 and doesn’t get the approval, the company will be in hot water with the owners and possibly the lender.
This is probably the biggest issue we see on a regular basis: founders form a company and hire a law firm to prepare a clean set of corporate cannabis governance documents. They pay their lawyers, put the docs in a file cabinet, and never look at them again. Over the years they replace the board of directors, appoint new officers, and even issue new shares without papering any of it. Then, a time comes when they need to execute a deal that requires good governance.
It is a whole lot easier to pay a lawyer to draft up simple and short governance documents or assist with consents or resolutions on an ongoing basis than it is to dig out of a compliance cleanup nightmare like this. It’s also a whole lot cheaper and faster, and doesn’t delay inking a deal.
This is another big one and applies to corporations. Shareholder agreements are agreements among shareholders to govern a corporation. They generally are not necessary but as a company grows, it would be crazy not to have one.
Lots of founders put shareholder agreements on the backburner until they are necessary, but at that point it may be too late. If a company wants (or needs) a shareholder agreement to close out a deal but one shareholder refuses to sign, all bets are off and the deal could be killed.
These are only just a few examples of cannabis corporate governance mistakes, but they are mistakes we see on a routine basis. We’ll continue to cover more on cannabis corporate governance, so keep reading.
The post Five Cannabis Corporate Governance Mistakes appeared first on Harris Bricken Sliwoski LLP.
A final judgment recently rendered in WM. Wrigley Jr. Company v. Roberto Conde, et al., is nothing short of a cautionary tale and a powerful reminder to cannabis companies: Parody is NOT a defense to trademark infringement in this type of commercial context.
We all know Wrigley – it’s a titan in the food industry and offers a range of products like gum, mints, and candies, including Skittles, Starburst, and Lifesavers. Wrigley is the owner of numerous trademarks and, relevant here, owns and have used the famous SKITTLES and STARBURST marks.
The judgment, which is based on a consent decree between the parties, is rendered against Steven Mata, an individual who lives and conducts business in Orange County. Mata does business as OC420, which is a retailer of edible cannabis products.
Mata marketed and sold products like “Medicated Skittles,” “Medicated Cannaburst Gummies,” and a “Munchies Edible Deal.” The packaging is clearly meant to imitate the Skittles and Starburst packaging, which adopts and uses the word marks in the same fashion and features a graphic design that is also nearly identical to the original candies.
There is a line between using another’s mark to make political or social commentary and using another’s mark to gain recognition and increase sales of your own product. We’ve written before about cannabis companies that have attempted to spoof well known marks and have paid a price for it.
Hershey’s, for example, made a statement against the industry when it initiated multiple lawsuits over several years against companies that branded cannabis-infused chocolate products with names such as “Mr. Dankbar,” “Reefer’s Peanut Butter Cups,” “Hasheath,” and “Ganja Joy,” all meant to imitate the popular chocolate products. These cases ultimately settled out of court.
The judgment states that Mata’s conduct constituted:
The Court issued an injunction against any further counterfeiting, infringement, dilution, and unfair competition. Mata is also to recall any products, packaging, and advertising that is already out in the world, and provide them to Wrigley’s attorneys for destruction. Finally, Mata is to provide an accounting of all profits from the products and “disgorge” them (turn them over) to Wrigley, in addition to statutory damages of $2 million per counterfeit mark, as well as pre-judgment interest, Wrigley’s costs and its attorneys’ fees in prosecuting the case.
Oof. This is one of the harshest judgments we’ve seen in a while, and that’s because Mata’s conduct was malicious and willful. (Sidenote: this also means that if Mata filed for bankruptcy, this judgment is non-dischargeable.) So please – don’t find yourself in a similar position and make sure to work with good intellectual property lawyers to clear your brand from the get go.
And if you’re interested in similar cases, here are past articles of other case studies:
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Family-owned Flying Monkey is one of the producers going the extra mile to give cannabinoid-rich hemp the attention & care it deserves.
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Common genetic variations in a particular serotonin receptor could be responsible for the varying effects psychedelic drugs have on different individuals, according to a recently published study from researchers at the University of North Carolina. The study, which comes at a time of reinvigorated research into the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelic drugs, could shed light on why the substances seem to have dramatically positive effects for some patients with serious mental health conditions while others find little therapeutic value in the drugs.
Bryan Roth, MD, PhD, led a team of researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) to complete the study. The goal of the research was to explore how variations in this one serotonin receptor changes the activity of four psychedelic therapies. The laboratory research in cells showed that seven variants uniquely and differentially impact the receptor’s response to four psychedelic drugs—psilocin, LSD, 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) and mescaline. The researchers believe that the in vitro research could be useful for determining appropriate mental health therapies for patients.
“Based on our study, we expect that patients with different genetic variations will react differently to psychedelic-assisted treatments,” said Roth, who leads the National Institutes of Health Psychotropic Drug Screening Program. “We think physicians should consider the genetics of a patient’s serotonin receptors to identify which psychedelic compound is likely to be the most effective treatment in future clinical trials.”
Research published in 2020 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy was a quick-acting and effective treatment for a group of 24 participants with major depressive disorder. A separate study published in 2016 determined that psilocybin treatment produced substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer. And last year, researchers determined that psychedelic users had less stress during lockdowns put in place to control the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior research has also determined that psychedelic drugs stimulate serotonin receptors in the brain. The 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor, also known as 5-HT2A, is responsible for mediating how a person reacts to psychedelic drugs. However, there are several naturally occurring, random genetic variations that can affect the function and structure of the 5-HT2A receptor. Much of the research into the effect that psychedelics have on mental health is inspired by the effect the drugs have on serotonin receptors, which bind the neurotransmitter serotonin and other similar molecules to help regulate mood, emotions and appetite.
Although they show great promise, psychedelic drugs do not seem to be effective as a treatment for everyone. Dustin Hines, PhD, an assistant professor of neuroscience in the department of psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was not involved in the UNC study, said the research could shed light on why psychedelic therapies work well for some patients while others find little therapeutic benefit from the drugs.
“Genetic variation in this receptor has been shown to influence the response of patients to other drugs,” Hines told Healthline. “While psychedelic therapies can provide rapid and sustained therapeutic benefits for multiple mental health concerns, there are a proportion of patients who fail to respond.”
Hines also noted that differences in mental health conditions from person to person could also contribute to how well patients respond to both psychedelic and more traditional treatments.
“Some individuals with depression may have a genetic predisposition that increases the likelihood that they will experience depression in their lives,” Hines said. “Other individuals facing depression may have more situational or environmental contributions.”
The researchers at UNC noted that the study could help provide insight to clinicians considering psychedelics as a treatment for their patients and called for further investigation.
“This is another piece of the puzzle we must know when deciding to prescribe any therapeutic with such dramatic effect aside from the therapeutic effect,” Roth said. “Further research will help us continue to find the best ways to help individual patients.”
Results of the study were published last week in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
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