Griffen is an attorney in Harris Bricken’s Los Angeles office, where he focuses his practice on corporate, transactional, intellectual property, data security, regulatory, and litigation matters across a wide variety of domestic and international industries.
In the past few weeks, I’ve published a few posts (here and here) about recent federal cannabis gun rights cases. In those cases, the courts disagreed on whether the federal government can prohibit cannabis users from owning guns. On the other end of the spectrum, there are state-level efforts to protect gun rights for cannabis
Federal law prohibits marijuana users from owning or possessing firearms– even in states with legal marijuana. Over the last few months, different federal courts issued critical orders in cannabis gun rights cases which could challenge this status quo. Both cases centered on the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association,
President Joe Biden just dropped the federal budget for 2024. The White House boldly claims that the tax plan will reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. But several parts of the budget’s tax reforms are likely to significantly (and adversely) impact the cannabis industry. Today, I’ll analyze a few key
The cannabis industry is in dire straits, perhaps even in a recession. Cannabis businesses cannot seek standard bankruptcy protections and are looking for creative ways to deal with the distressed market. As companies look to shake off unproductive assets, our cannabis group has fielded tons of inquiries about how to deal with depressions in the
Until recently, all of the “big” social media companies banned U.S. companies from cannabis advertising on their platforms. At the same time, they imposed pretty unclear and inconsistent requirements on hemp advertising (in this post, when I refer to “cannabis” I mean only “marijuana” consistent with many states’ definitions of the term). All of this
The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 deems cannabis users “prohibited persons” who cannot legally own or possess firearms. In the past, numerous petitioners failed to overturn convictions under this law. That is now changing. In a recent case known as United States v. Harrison, a federal court ruled that cannabis use alone does not
Since the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, the hemp CBD industry has been eagerly awaiting FDA CBD regulations. In that time, FDA convened a working group to study how the agency would regulate CBD foods and dietary supplements. As of January 26, 2023, the FDA concluded that it will NOT regulate CBD foods or
As we inch closer to a cannabis recession, businesses are desperately looking for new ways to stay afloat. A few years ago, our cannabis attorneys saw equity investments left and right. It seemed like everyone wanted to own a piece of a cannabis business. But as things grow more precarious for the industry as a
The year 2022 was a busy one for the California cannabis industry, with everything from tax reform to the beginning of enforcement. In this post, I’ll go back through some of the highlight’s for California’s cannabis industry last year. California hints at enforcement? Anyone who knows anything about California cannabis knows that the regulators simply
On December 1, 2022, the Los Angeles Controller released a report (PDF here) with a pretty lame pun as a name: “High Maintenance: Review of the City’s Cannabis Regulation Efforts.” While the report’s name is bland, it reveals the pretty dire state of Los Angeles’s cannabis regulation and licensing. Since opening up for licensing, LA
