marijuana lawyer L.A.

November 19, 2018

New California Cannabis Shop Hopefuls Face Barriers to Entry

This year was the first in which Californians could freely grow, sell, buy and use marijuana purely for purposes of recreation without the constant threat of criminal law enforcement intervention. However, almost nowhere in the Golden State can new marijuana business owners say it’s been an easy road. Los Angeles dispensary lawyer

Prop. 64, which opened the doors to recreational marijuana, imparted a significant amount of power and discretion to local jurisdictions to decide the type and volume of marijuana businesses that would be allowable. Some communities, like San Jose and San Francisco, embraced commercial cannabis at the outset. Meanwhile, others like Fontana have tried to outlaw the shops entirely. Those with the harshest restrictions have in some cases (Fontana, for instance) been successfully challenged.

For the most part, communities agree the drug should be legal, but just practically speaking, it takes time to supplant an unregulated market. Questions have still arisen regarding how the wealth should be distributed, who gets a chance to participate and how tight should restrictions be. A dedicated California marijuana dispensary attorney can advocate on behalf of all types of cannabis corporations, whether a brick-and-mortar store, a delivery service, farmers or ancillary business. Continue reading

September 28, 2018

New L.A. Bud Businesses Can’t Ignore Legal Snares

By Cannabis Law Group

A marijuana business expo is now in its fifth year in L.A., with NBC-4 defining it as an event for cannabis growers, entrepreneurs, investors, doctors and users to gather, network and collaborate. As California is poised to become one of the biggest marijuana markets on earth, thanks to its recent legalization of adult recreational use of the drug. The expo is held until the end of the month, with booths making available a variety of businesses, services and products. Some keynote speakers have been identified as industry experts and trailblazers. marijuana lawyer

But as the market grows, our L.A. marijuana business attorneys cannot stress enough how important it is that whatever you niche, you need an attorney to help you navigate through the complex process of state law and local regulation. Failure to do so can end up costing you a substantial sum in the long run.

Although it seems everyone is finding a niche in the cannabis market, there are some main umbrellas under which most of these operations fall:

Cultivation
Infused products
Retail sales

April 20, 2017

420 Roots – How it Became a Marijuana Holiday

By Cannabis Law Group

Most people know that 420 holds special meaning among stoners. What few seem to know, however, is just how April 20th became so revered among the reefer-loving throngs. smoke

Different strands of the story have cropped up in recent years. Some will tell you it’s tea time in Holland. Others think it has something to do with the number of active chemicals in the drug. Others cite a tune by Bob Dylan. Maybe it’s the California criminal code to punish marijuana possession? (It’s not.) Some think it’s totally arbitrary.

According to CNN, the most credible theory begins with a secret code among a group of high school friends at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California. They called themselves, “the Waldos.” Almost every school day at 4:20 p.m., they would meet up and smoke out. Continue reading

March 15, 2017

Washington Marijuana Business to Open in City With Ban

By Cannabis Law Group

The city of Fife in Washington state has a formal ban on marijuana sales – both recreational and medicinal – despite a statewide law that allows both types of businesses.

But now, as The News Tribune has reported, one man is determined to open a shop there anyway – making it one of two marijuana retail operations that will be legally up-and-running in city limits. The reason this is possible, as the reporter explained, is because the first location is run by the Puyallup Tribe. The Native American group’s shop, which opened in what used to be a cigar bar, is situated on tribal land and therefore isn’t bound by city rules.

The second store is slated to open in a former drug store. It’s within walking distance of the tribal shop. That location is within the boundaries of the city’s authority, but the shop will be allowed in spite of the ban following an out-of-court settlement reached late last year by the owner and the city in which the owner won an exemption against the ban. Continue reading

February 26, 2017

Report: Most Banks Still Reticent About Reefer

By Cannabis Law Group

When your business is legal, but you can’t access a bank for everyday functions, you have no choice but to become an all-cash venture. There is perhaps no industry that knows this woe better than those in the business of marijuana. But some are now finding that even those businesses that never actually touch marijuana may have banking headaches. money

The L.A. Times recently reported on a local businesswoman who alongside her partner launched a packaging company that caters to the cannabis industry. They produce containers, bags, logos, labels, custom-printed jars and boxes. They currently have about three workers and are preparing to bring on three more. They provide marketing and branding assistance to growers and distributors, and the owner describes it as “all very upscale.” The biggest problem, however, has been the banking.

She explained how she met with a single accountant last year who informed her she would likely only be paid in cash and that her workers and suppliers would need to be paid in cash as well. Payroll, sales and income taxes – all of it has to be done in cash. The accountant advised her to stash the cash under her mattress and then somewhere down the line find a time to make a large deposit into her bank account. When she told him that sounded illegal, he shrugged, saying that’s how everyone does it. Continue reading

February 22, 2017

From Chocolate to Cannabis: Former Hershey Factor Purchased by Marijuana Business

By Cannabis Law Group

A Canadian company has tripled its production capacity by moving into an old chocolate factory, a long-time vacant facility that had posed the risk of blight and crime for the community in a suburb of Ottawa, Ontario for years.

According to Financial Post, this purchase could make Canopy Growth, the parent company, the owner of the biggest indoor marijuana production site in Canada, and possibly the world. The building was purchased with the help of a group of collective investors who backed Canopy. There was previously a medical marijuana facility of the site, but they were only a tenant and they only took up a third of the building’s space – a whopping 472,000 square feet.

This new space has the potential for add-ons of hundreds of thousands of square feet of production and processing space, which could include expanding the indoor facilities or creating greenhouse growing platforms. Even as there is a need for commercial processing of the drug, there is also space needed to convert the marijuana and cannabinoids into products that are higher margin means of profit, such as oils and edibles. Vaporizer pens and other medical delivery options too could be easily manufactured at this site. Continue reading

January 19, 2017

Medical Marijuana Access in Florida Limited, For Now

By Cannabis Law Group

Medical marijuana dispensaries have been a common sight in L.A. for years – more than two decades, to be exact. So it’s tough to remember that in many parts of the country, these facilities are still having to wade gingerly into their new markets, even as the public has shown overwhelming support for them at the polls. bud

One example is Florida.

Recently, media in The Sunshine State have been exploring the way in which marijuana businesses are carefully entering the market after the approval of Amendment 2, which took effect this month. As reported by one outlet, one 2,000-square-foot storefront in Tampa does not, the reporter noted, “evoke images of the seedy bong-filled pot shops of popular imagination.” Again, we have to remember that it’s still “imagination” to those who haven’t lived in or traveled to a state where this substance has been widely available for years. The writer describes a clean, spacious dispensary with a brightly-lit showroom and materials to help educate buyers on the drug’s merits. One customer, there to purchase products for her son with epilepsy, comments to the writer that in truth, she “didn’t know what to expect,” but was pleasantly surprised. Continue reading

January 6, 2017

Cannabis Surveillance Systems Are Growing Industry

By Cannabis Law Group

Of all the industries to crop up around marijuana legalization, surveillance systems are among those that are growing the fastest.

You have probably taken note if you have moseyed on into a marijuana grow operation in Colorado an array of colored bar codes. Every single plant is tagged with either a blue or a yellow bar code, either stuck in the soil or tied to the stalk. Each tag has a bar code and a Radio Frequency ID chip. Then, if you take a glance around, you’ll probably notice there are security cameras watching your every move at all times. The badges worn by workers allow the company to follow them from room-to-room. Inspectors may drop by without prior notice, just to make sure the amount being produced matches the records on file with the state, which tracks it all in real time.

All of these security systems are high-tech – and costly. It’s budding into a multi-million dollar industry, and it’s one of the only reasons we’re able to safely shift this plant from the black market to a major commodity sold to the over-21 public on store shelves. Continue reading

December 2, 2016

Legal Marijuana vs. 2nd Amendment – Gun Buyers Face Legal Conflict

By Cannabis Law Group

While a number of new states recently voted to expand marijuana rights, many did not realize that this could directly conflict with their Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm. gun

That’s because federal law – specifically 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which is part of the Gun Control Act – criminalizes the possession or receipt of a firearm by an unlawful drug user or person addicted to a controlled substance. Of course, many states have now legalized the drug, but it still remains outlawed by federal statute. Those purchasing a new firearm are asked to fill out federal background check forms that specifically ask whether the purchaser uses marijuana for recreational or medicinal purposes. If they do, they are not allowed to purchase the gun.

This conflict was recently questioned by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who says she didn’t vote in favor of marijuana, but now she is worried about its impact on the Second Amendment rights of citizens. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in Wilson v. Lynch that the Second Amendment rights of a Nevada woman were not infringed by the federal government’s ban on sales of guns to medical marijuana card holders. The ruling is applicable to nine other states, including California. Continue reading

September 21, 2016

Medical Marijuana Patients Denied Second Amendment Rights

By Cannabis Law Group

The Second Amendment, which guarantees citizens’ right to keep and bear arms, is one of the more controversial in our U.S. Constitution. It’s been the source of much contention in our nation in recent years, but the fact remains: It is still considered a fundamental right. gavel211

Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued a ruling saying it is a right that should be denied to users of medical marijuana. In Wilson v. Lynch et al., the court ruled that a federal law that prohibits medical marijuana cardholders from buying firearms does not actually violate those patients’ Second Amendment rights because users of marijuana are prone to behavior that is “irrational” and “unpredictable.”

The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by a Nevada woman who sought to buy a handgun five years ago. However, she was refused the sale after the owner of the store recognized her as being a medical marijuana patient. Plaintiff asserted that in fact, she didn’t really use marijuana, but obtained a medical marijuana card in order to make a political statement, saying she supports the liberalization of marijuana laws nationally. Continue reading