“Los Angeles residents are going to vote on a tax on anything sold in a medical marijuana dispensary. If the measure passes the city could be solvent within 45 minutes.” –Conan O’Brien Though meant to be humorous, there is a lot of truth to this joke. Like it or not, higher level arguments regarding the
We had a cannabis first over the weekend, when Fireweed Farms out of Prosser hosted the first wholesale marijuana auction. Three hundred pounds of marijuana were sold to processors and retailers for approximately $600,000. This auction brings up all sorts of questions industry stakeholders have been asking. Will the marijuana market in 5 years look
“Not in My Back Yard,” or NIMBY, seems to be the word of the day for the marijuana industry and this is not a good thing. With legalization taking over state by state, NIMBY neighbors are coming out in large numbers to go after marijuana businesses. NIMBYs can be aggressive and, in our experience, will
Terence McKenna, psychedelic philosopher extraordinaire, is credited with saying, “Drugs induce paranoia and psychosis in people who have never taken any.” Count regulators, legislators, law enforcement and the media among the paranoid as well. Thankfully, common sense and evidence-based thinking are starting to make inroads in the ongoing war on drugs, but this past week
A few weeks back, our nation’s current attorney general, Eric Holder, announced he would be resigning the position he has held since the start of the Obama administration, once his replacement is named and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Holder’s tenure is viewed somewhat as a mixed bag — earning kudos for his efforts to
Singer-songwriter and nine time Grammy award winner John Legend speaks good sense when it comes to marijuana, having said the following in a Huffington Post interview last year: I think we need to legalize marijuana. There’s no good reason to continue prohibition, and we need to consider ending prohibition in general. I don’t know if
Marijuana business owners need to be mindful of products liability laws and how they pertain to defective cannabis products. Though most state’s product liability laws favor those not directly involved in manufacturing a defective product, there are circumstances under which retailers can be held liable for a defective product, even without any knowledge of the
A trademark is commonly thought of as a brand or a logo. Think of Nike as a brand and the swoosh as its logo. A trademark can be a word (Nike), a phrase (“Just do it”), a symbol (the swoosh), a design (the swoosh) or a combination of words and designs. The owner of a
Why do commercial landlords still hesitate to rent to marijuana businesses? In addition to the remote possibility of a landlord getting arrested and prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for violating the Federal Controlled Substances Act, landlords face the very real threat of losing their property via a civil asset forfeiture. The federal
Be it the IRS, the Bureau of Reclamation, or the banks, the conflict between state and federal laws on marijuana can cause problems to those in the marijuana industry. You should now add filing for bankruptcy to the list. When businesses go (or are near to going) under, they typically file for bankruptcy in a
