On June 28, US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was suspended for one month by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for using cannabis, effectively disqualifying her from competing in the Olympics. The suspension of a gold medal contending athlete caught many by surprise and sparked a worldwide debate about marijuana use by athletes should be addressed. Many
Like many Americans, one of the first things I do every morning is check the overnight headlines, including anything that happened in the sports world. Recently, I woke up to an article about Los Angeles Lakers guard Alex Caruso being arrested at Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas for “possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.”
For the past year, my colleagues and I have written extensively on the murky legality of Delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). We have covered everything from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s position on “synthetically derived THC” to the growing number of state bans. You can read more on these issues here: R.I.P Delta-8 THC DEA Interim Final
One interesting thing about cannabis law is how so much of it ties into “first principles”, or bedrock tenets of the U.S. Constitution. We lawyers spend our days papering deals and suing folks (always with good cause) and defending clients from lawsuits (which are always BS), so we seldom revisit first principles. But these principles
Second verse, same as the first, a whole lot louder and a lot MORE woke. The House of Representatives passed the first version of the MORE Act at the end of 2020. The bill promptly died in the Republican-controlled Senate. This blog tracked the evolution of the bill’s original version: demystifying the bill, dispelling some myths and
It has been well over two years since Congress enacted the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill), which legalized the commercial production of hemp and tasked the Food and Drug Administration (the FDA) with the regulation of hemp-derived products intended for human consumption. Nevertheless, the FDA has yet to carve a legitimate
Delta-8 THC had a good run. People made money, customers were happy, and it all seemed legal to boot. Like all good things in life, states and the DEA are doing everything in their power to ensure that delta-8’s run comes to an end. Let’s talk about why. For those of you who may not
Clients have often as asked whether HIPAA applies to the cannabis industry. As with anything else in healthcare, the answer can be complex. HIPAA was enacted in 1996 to help protect a patient’s healthcare information. While HIPAA is expansive, to the extent state law is more restrictive or protective, then state law will control in
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s policy of rejecting applications to register trademarks that identify nonhemp cannabis products, as well as certain hemp CBD products, reflects an unduly doctrinaire approach that ultimately makes Americans less safe. As the cannabis industry continues to enter the business mainstream, the extension of trademark rights to cannabis companies’ products
On May 3, the District Court for the District of Columbia ( “trial court”) dismissed a petition filed by the Hemp Industries Association and others (“Petitioners”) challenging a DEA interim final rule (the “Rule”) that amended its regulations following the enactment of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (“2018 Farm Bill”). Although not a good
