Throughout the course of both of his initial candidacy and eventual presidency, the businessman-turned-reality TV star-turned-President and Republican frontrunner for the 2024 election, Donald Trump, had a rollercoaster of a political relationship with cannabis reform. From previous supportive comments to appointing people who were perhaps the physical embodiment of the failures of the drug war,
With every election season that comes, it’s become almost inevitable that at least one or two more of the states will legalize cannabis for either fully recreational usage or at least medical reasons. Even if it was but a midterm election, the 2022 election season still resulted in two more states legalizing cannabis for recreational
Friend of the firm Andrew DeWeese published a recent LinkedIn post on Oregon’s outlying stance on THCA the other day, and the priorities of local industry advocates. I wanted to highlight that post and discuss today– it’s a compelling post and I have all sorts of thoughts about it. Here it is: Let’s break it
Cannabis M&A (short for mergers and acquisitions) in California is much more complicated and problematic than in other states. The biggest reason for this is that licenses are not transferrable, which all but eliminates the possibility of asset sales. In turn, this means that deals are much more complicated for both buyer and seller, and
Similarly to many career politicians who now support criminal justice reform after decades of supporting the most unjust policing and sentencing laws, President Joe Biden has been notably lacking in keeping the pro-cannabis and criminal justice reform promises he ran on in the contentious and chaotic election that was 2020. Along with still referencing the
On February 7, 2024, California Assembly Member Aguilar-Curry introduced AB 2223. The bill, if passed, would significantly change the state’s cannabis and hemp industries – for better or worse. Today, we’ll take a look at how AB 2223 could change both the cannabis industry and hemp industry in the Golden State. First though, a brief
As America celebrates and commemorates Black History Month, it’s important to remember exactly how Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system in our country. From the crack vs. cocaine sentencing disparities to the fact that Black Americans are on average four times as likely to be wrongfully convicted of a serious
California publishes quarterly data concerning its “enforcement” efforts against the illegal cannabis market. Over the last couple of quarters, I’ve gotten in the habit of analyzing this data (see here for Q3 2023, and here for Q2 2023). I’ve been blogging here since 2018 and my opinion is that the state is doing very, very
The 2024 Oregon legislative session kicked off yesterday. It’s a short session this year, with adjournment sine die set for March 10. Whatever hasn’t passed by that day will be scuttled to 2025, or fade to black entirely. This year, we have but one cannabis bill to cover– unless you count HB 4093, which would
Two of our international cannabis lawyers, Vince Sliwoski (business) and Adams Lee (international trade), recently joined the Simply Trade podcast for a lively discussion on the international cannabis trade. You can hear that free-ranging, informative conversation at either of the following links: Apple Podcasts Spotify As explained in the Simply Trade show notes: This episode
