#cannabispolitics – “A California lawmaker on Wednesday introduced a federal bill that would allow small, licensed cannabis operators to sell and ship their products directly to consumers, including across state lines. Known as the Small and Homestead Independent Producers (SHIP) Act, the legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday by Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California. If passed, the SHIP Act would allow small cannabis farmers to send marijuana purchases to customers through the mail, including across state lines to consumers in other states with legal cannabis.”
#cannabisindustry – “Thompson Coburn LLP has released its latest state-by-state ranking of state cannabis regulations. The guide provides a holistic review of the current cannabis laws in every state including the District of Columbia, from favorable to cannabis businesses to most restrictive. This is the fourth year for the report and it is researched and produced by the Firm’s Tracking Cannabis blog team, and authored by Barry Weisz, a partner in the Thompson Coburn Los Angeles office.
The rankings look at a variety of factors including Cannabidiol (CBD), medical and recreational cannabis, non-profit cannabis entities, commercial cannabis licenses, cannabis regulatory agencies, developments and trends, and business opportunities…..
Leading the rankings again is California (#1), the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Since then, the state has legalized adult-use marijuana, and created a uniform licensing regime for both medical and recreational marijuana use across the state. The biggest restrictions and legal complexities lie in the area of commercial cannabis activities. A new law passed in July 2022 eliminates the state’s weight-based cannabis cultivation tax to be paid by market growers and created new tax credits for certain cannabis businesses. Other pending legislation would affect employers’ treatment of persons who use cannabis, and potential loosening of restrictions on labeling/marketing requirements for cannabis products.”
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/2022-state-by-state-ranking-of-cannabis-6795051/
Careful out there!
#cannabislaw – “The SEC claims that in four rounds of press releases spanning 2018 and 2019, the defendants “touted Profile’s purported cannabis business deals with Eswatini, but failed to disclose that cannabis was in fact illegal in Eswatini.”
The SEC also claimed that the company announced in 2018 that it had made a deal to work with an international distributor that would sell its cannabis products in Mexico and Argentina even though the distributor, which is identified only by its initials in the complaint, was “not licensed, or otherwise legally able, to distribute Profile’s cannabis products in Mexico and Argentina.”
The regulator alleged that despite the fact that Tucker was described on the company’s website as a consultant, he was actually running the show, serving as Oran’s self-described “right hand,” serving in “a central, executive-like role” and doing everything from coordinating with the company’s lawyers and accountants to posting its promotional tweets”
https://www.law360.com/articles/1529239/sec-claims-cannabis-co-hid-executive-like-felon-s-role
#cannabislaw – Nevada – “The Nevada Board of Pharmacy’s classification of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug is unconstitutional, a district judge ruled Wednesday.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed against the Board of Pharmacy by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada on behalf of plaintiffs Antoine Poole and the Cannabis Equity and Inclusion Community, an organization that helps people get established in the state’s marijuana industry….
On Wednesday, District Judge Joe Hardy Jr. agreed with the ACLU’s argument that marijuana does have an accepted medical use, because voters amended the state constitution in 2000 to legalize medical marijuana. He also ordered the Board of Pharmacy to remove cannabis from the list of Schedule 1 drugs.
“The constitutional right to use marijuana upon the advice of a physician does establish that marijuana has an accepted medical use and treatment in the United States,” Hardy said….
During the court hearing, Hardy said he was not ruling on any issues related to overturning convictions for marijuana-related crimes, because the ACLU’s lawsuit did not address the topic.”
#cannabisindustry – “The two primary challenges are to regulations that allegedly violate the U.S. Constitution’s dormant commerce clause by limiting licenses to state residents, and challenges to largely discretional licensing determinations under the due process clause. Recent decisions show that dormant commerce clause challenges may be far more viable in the long term. Indeed, some legal scholars predict that these early successes are only the beginning of the road…..
Earlier this year, we flagged an appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals addressing the constitutionality of Maine’s residency requirement for cannabis business owners and operators as one of the top cases to watch in 2022….the implications of this decision are significant, especially for multistate operators (or MSOs) who are now able to point to federal precedent to challenge residency-based regulations for both medical and adult-use cannabis licensing. And, although the ruling does not immediately pave the way for interstate cannabis commerce, scholars like Robert Mikos (professor at Vanderbilt Law School and one of the leading experts on the intersection of federalism and cannabis), predict that such a challenge could be on the horizon.”
Law Office of Dale Schafer 