The U.S. Constitution gives Congress certain enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8), with powers “not delegated to the [federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” (Tenth Amendment). While one of the enumerated powers is the regulation of interstate commerce, the
On August 17, the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the the holding of the US District Court for the District of Maine that the residency requirements of Maine’s Medical Use Marijuana Act violate the Dormant Commerce Clause (“DCC”). The First Circuit has added itself to the list of jurisdictions that have invalidated similar state
I like being a cannabis business lawyer. It took a while for me to get there. I certainly didn’t think I would be doing this while I was in law school, or at the start of my career. Like a lot of things in life, it just sort of… happened. And I’ve learned a lot
If you’re a cannabis lab, researcher, or scientist, the NIH is interested in hearing your thoughts! Last week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) posted a request for information (RFI)* regarding identifying the barriers to cannabis research. Through this RFI, the NIH aims to address the problems that researchers face in attempting to study cannabis.
On August 4, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden published a formal statement concerning the sentencing of U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner. Griner was just sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony and fined one million rubles. We’ve written about Griner’s case before (here and here), but to summarize, she could be spending the
Last week, we discovered that U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker cited our own Vince Sliwoski in a letter to Merrick Garland, the U.S. Attorney General, pressing for the end of cannabis prohibition. The Warren-Booker letter, dated October 6, 2021, advocates for DEA to remove cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act— which would
Most cannabis businesses have to amend written cannabis contracts on a regular basis. And many of them do it all wrong. Today, I’ll look at some of the key issues cannabis businesses must consider in amending cannabis agreements. First off, any halfway decent cannabis contract will have an amendments provision. These clauses only permit amendment
Things are happening in New York as we get closer to the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) and the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) issuing adult-use licenses: today (July 14, 2022), the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) issued a memo to its branches stating that the FDNY stops cannabis testing for firefighters and applicants to
Marijuana is illegal in most countries in the world, is federally illegal in the United States, and is highly regulated even in the U.S. states that allow it. Hemp laws are all over the place in the U.S. and are often just as bad as marijuana laws internationally. It goes without saying that it’s a
On June 14, 2022, Harris Sliwoski attorneys Fred Rocafort, Jihee Ahn, Paul Coble, and Vincent Silwoski presented a webinar entitled Protecting, Monetizing and Enforcing Cannabis Intellectual Property. Attendees submitted many great questions before and during the webinar, but our IP attorneys were not able to answer all of them. In this post, we will answer
