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Cannabidiol (CBD) competed with Vitamin C as a top ingredient in new cosmetic products this past year, with promises of having anti-inflammatory effects and other healing properties. Amid the hype, at the end of 2018, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, P.L. 115-334 (the “2018 Farm Bill”) was signed into law, changing the marketing of hemp and derivatives of cannabis and further removing hemp from the Controlled Substances Act thereby making it no longer an illegal substance under federal law. See Section 297A. The 2018 Farm Bill amended the definition of “hemp” to specifically include “all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids,” which has been construed as an attempt to include hemp-based CBD under the definition of industrial hemp. The 2018 Farm Bill allows, subject to certain restrictions, hemp cultivation, along with the sale, transport (including via interstate commerce), and possession of hemp-derived products.
Continue Reading “C” is for…

Cannabis and CBD-driven business format franchising is coming.

Franchising in the United States has deep historical roots in a nearly endless array of industries, from Benjamin Franklin’s Franchise-esque Printing Business to the Singer Sewing Machine’s profit-share model (1851) to Martha Matilda Harper’s Creation of the Modern Franchise with the Harper Method – all sixty-plus years…

The 2018 Farm Bill lifted the ban on hemp, creating a lot of buzz about products derived from hemp, including hemp-derived CBD oil.

Although this creates an exciting market opportunity for veterinarians and members of the pet industry, some important issues still need to be resolved.

Passing the Farm Bill did not legalize “pot for pets” — but it does mean pets can enjoy the benefits of CBD derived from industrial hemp.
Continue Reading Pets and Pot: Cannabis and Pet Products

This is Washington, and we do like to speak in initials.  A plain English translation of the title of this piece would read “FDA ‘places FDA-approved drugs that contain CBD derived from cannabis and no more than 0.1 percent tetrahydrocannabinols in Schedule V.’”  DEA Final Order, Docket No. DEA-486 Schedule V drugs include cough medicine with codeine and many pain relievers that still require a prescription.  So, really what this order does is allow doctors in the US legally to prescribe the recently approved epilepsy drug, Epidiolex, and allows pharmacies, rather than marijuana dispensaries, legally to sell the drug.
Continue Reading FDA: .1% CBD OK

Twenty nine states plus the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana and eight of these states plus D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana.  Additional states are considering some form of legalized marijuana use.  This has created a new and growing demand for leasing industrial, agricultural and retail properties for growing, manufacturing and dispensing cannabis.  Given this growing demand for real estate, it is important to reflect on how many boilerplate provisions in commercial leases are not suited to covering a use that continuously puts state law at odds with federal law.
Continue Reading Don’t Get Smoked in Your Next Commercial Marijuana Lease

As of January 2017, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana.  However, marijuana remains a Schedule l substance under the Controlled Substances Act.  Substances in Schedule l are determined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have no medical use, and states that allow the use of marijuana for medical use violate federal law.
Continue Reading Food and Drug Administration’s Regulation of Cannabis

Data privacy and the cannabis industry. The growing intersection of the two is yet another sign that cannabis has come a long way from the black market. As more states legalize cannabis for medical and recreational purposes, and the industry faces greater regulation and tracking, data privacy becomes increasingly important in the cannabis world.
Continue Reading Data Privacy and Cannabis? You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby…

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission announced yesterday that it will hire a diversity consultant to examine what steps it could take to improve racial diversity in the state’s medical marijuana industry.  The announcement comes after a losing applicant for a medical marijuana license filed a lawsuit against the Commission alleging that its selection process for coveted marijuana growing licenses ignored a statutory mandate to consider the racial diversity of the applicants. The complaint alleges that the Commission was “derelict in its legislatively mandated duty to ‘actively seek to achieve racial, ethnic, and geographic diversity when licensing medical cannabis growers.’”

Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus has also criticized the lack of racial diversity in the Commission’s licensing process.  Of the 30 business that were cleared for growing and process licenses in 2016, minorities held leadership positions in only two.
Continue Reading Racial Diversity in the Spotlight for Cannabis Industry