marijuana attorney

December 25, 2016

South California Town Seeks to be Cannabis Cultivation Mecca

A South California town is positioning itself to be a mecca of cannabis cultivation in the coming years. The vision is complete with “bud and breakfast” resorts and “soak and toke” mineral spas. marijuana

In Desert Hot Springs, property developers are planning cannabis cultivation and distribution businesses that will serve as a prime location for the budding recreational marijuana industry. Leaders see the sites open for business by 2018. For example, one property developer is planning to be Southern California’s first stand-alone cannabis extraction facility in an old welding shop that used to be a barn. Other property owners are planning greenhouses that will span tens of thousands of square feet and destinations for locals and tourists alike.

With the passage of Proposition 64, California voters opened the door to what will soon be the single largest legal marijuana market in the country. Desert Hot Springs is one of those that is preparing to capitalize on that prospect. Characterized as a “bedroom community,” Desert Hot Springs is located in Coachella Valley and has a population of 26,000. It was the first community in Southern California to green light large-scale growth of marijuana. Currently, there are two dozen new marijuana businesses, and the hope is many more will be added over the next two years. Continue reading

December 22, 2016

Mom Charged, Loses Custody, For Treating Ill Daughter With Marijuana

By Cannabis Law Group

A woman in Idaho has lost custody of her children as she faces criminal charges for treating her 3-year-old daughter with a marijuana-infused smoothie to treat her sudden onslaught of seizures. child hand

The 23-year-old woman explained later that the marijuana treatment was her last course of action. She has entered a not guilty plea to the misdemeanor charge of causing injury to a minor, who was already taking medicine to treat her bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Starting in October, the girl started to suffer from acute and repeated seizures. At the time, the girl was going through withdrawals from Risperdal, an antipsychotic medication, and her systems were growing increasingly worse. Her mother made her a smoothie with marijuana to help ease her symptoms and help her calm down – and it worked. According to the Times-News, the girls seizures dissipated within just a half hour.

This might have been the end of it, but later that day, the girl had a doctor’s appointment. A blood test indicated she had marijuana in her system. Doctors are mandated reporters and the positive drug test was reported to the state health and social services department. The mother was arrested and charged with the misdemeanor and the state agency removed custody of her children, who are now with her former husband. She now has only supervised visitation rights. Continue reading

December 20, 2016

U.S. Marijuana Stock Tepid, Canada Marijuana Stock Spikes

By Cannabis Law Group

The contrast between the stock of marijuana in the U.S. and Canada couldn’t be more stark. graph

CNN Money reported that a real estate investment trust that plans to buy buildings to lease to medical marijuana growers went public on Wall Street – and the response was less-than-encouraging. On the NYSE, the Innovative Industrial Properties stock shares were priced at $20, inched upward to $20.52, and then finished the day by 4 percent less than where they started. Granted, this is just one of a few companies related to the marijuana trade that is traded on any major exchange. So in some sense, the fact that it’s being traded at all is something of an accomplishment. Another company out Britain, GW Pharmaceuticals, is listed on Nasdaq, and its stock is actually up more than 55 percent this year. However in the U.S., this has proven more the exception than the rule.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg Markets reports that a company called ICC International Cannabis Corp. debuted its first day on the Canadian stock market and closed 356 percent higher than where it started. The CEO of ICC, a company out of Uruguay, has called the Canadian market “perfect” for marijuana companies. The entire country is slated to legalize the use of recreational marijuana next year. If that event occurs on the timeline expected, there will be an estimated 4 million legal recreational users in Canada by 2021. That means there will be a potential for $4.5 billion in annual sales. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that legality at the federal level makes it a much more attractive option to investors. Continue reading

December 18, 2016

Marijuana Legality: Not a Done Deal, Despite Public Approval

By Cannabis Law Group

Cannabis has made major strides in terms of public opinion in recent years. Today, a majority of Americans say marijuana should be legal. In November, California voters agreed it should be legal for recreational use. More than half of all states now have some form of legal access to medical marijuana. It would seem, then, the next logical step would be for the federal government to step back from the stringent law that’s currently on the books – the one that classifies marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic with no redeemable value – and create a policy that more fits the modern legal landscape.

Not so fast. As the Associated Press recently reported, two of President-Elect Donald Trump’s top picks for prime cabinet positions – Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia – could mean a new crackdown on marijuana-tolerant states, including California.

Just this past April, Sessions was quoted during a U.S. Senate hearing as saying that those who smoke marijuana are “not good people,” and likening those who believe marijuana should be legal are not grown-ups. He added that legalization of marijuana posed a “very real danger” to America. Continue reading

December 14, 2016

Anti-Marijuana Officials Appointed to Trump’s Cabinet

By Cannabis Law Group

President-Elect Donald J. Trump has now appointed two individuals to his cabinet who are decidedly against the legalization of marijuana, even for medicinal purposes.

First up is Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s pick for attorney general. Sessions has a strong record of opposing marijuana reform, saying just this past April during a legislative hearing that, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” He added that Washington needed “grown-ups in charge,” who would be willing to assert that marijuana is “not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized.”

Then, Trump appointed Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services. A consistently anti-marijuana politician, his position could afford him even greater control over whether the drug is available for medical purposes. Continue reading

September 7, 2016

Federal Appeals Court: License Plate Profiling Illegal

By Cannabis Law Group

Drivers from states where marijuana is legal cannot lawfully be singled out by patrol officers just because they have an out-of-state license, justices with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision. police3

In Vasquez v. Lewis, the Denver-based justices ruled it’s unconstitutional to pull over a driver simply because they have out-of-state plates. The civil lawsuit was against two highway patrol officers form Kansas who conceded they stopped a driver at least partially because his license plates were from a state “known to be home to medical marijuana dispenaries.” Officers characterized the entire state of Colorado as a “known drug source area” and the highway on which the driver traveled is a “known corridor.” Mind you, the highway to which the officers were referring is Interstate 70, which is 2,000 miles long and spans all the way from the East Coast to Utah. The driver also had a blanket in his vehicle, which officers asserted, “Might have obscured something.”

The officers also asserted the driver was “acting suspiciously” and was “nervous.” He also reportedly had a temporary tag taped to the inside of his tinted rear window, which officers said they were unable to see. However, the court rejected these other arguments. Justice Carlos Lucero, writing for the majority, wrote that police have to abandon this pretense that citizenship in certain states justifies traffic stops, particularly given that medical marijuana is now legal in 25 states, plus Washington D.C. If such practice was allowed, that would mean police would have reasonable grounds to justify the search and seizure of citizens in more than half the states in the U.S. Continue reading

August 15, 2016

Court: “Cloned” Marijuana Is Still Marijuana

By Cannabis Law Group

What exactly is a marijuana plant? marijuanaplants

Seems a fairly straightforward question with a simple answer. However, the issue has been muddled in Michigan, where the Court of Appeals had to take on the issue in Michigan v. Ventura.

The issue was raised after police in Grand Rapids raided the home of the defendant in this case, who was a medical marijuana card holder. Once inside, authorities discovered 21 marijuana plants – plus an additional 22 “clones” of those plants. Either way, he was over the limit of 19 that he was allowed to grow under the state’s 2008 medical marijuana law. Still, the language of the law was a bit hazy to begin with. Beyond that, the difference between being three plants over and 25 plants over is significant in terms of charges and penalties.

Defendant argued the 22 clones – which were portions of the plant that had been transplanted to different pots – were simply leaves and cuttings. However, after referencing the dictionary, a federal case and decision handed down recently by the Idaho Court of Appeals, the three-judge panel all agreed the clones were in fact plants. That means defendant violated the law by owning 43 plants, meaning he’ll get no reprieve on the penalty that requires him to serve two years on probation and 120 hours on community service. Continue reading

July 5, 2016

Survey: 9 in 10 Pediatric Oncologists Favor Patient Access to Pot

By Cannabis Law Group

Survey data unveiled at the most recent annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting revealed that more than 90 percent of pediatric oncology doctors are in favor of allowing patient access to marijuana therapy. doctor9

The findings are important because even as legalization of medical marijuana has become more widespread, its use for pediatric patients is controversial. Access has increased, but it’s a controversial subject. There are many advocates who believe there is no situation in which children should be prescribed the drug.

These researchers sent the electronic survey to more than 650 pediatric oncologists at three National Cancer Institute centers in Washington state, Massachusetts and Illinois – three states that have legalized the drug for medicinal use. Nearly half of recipients responded. Of those who did, 92 percent said they were willing to help child cancer patients access medical marijuana to help manage their symptoms. Continue reading

June 23, 2016

Colorado’s Teen Marijuana Use Lower After Legalization

By Cannabis Law Group

One of the main talking points of those opposed to the legalization of marijuana is that it will spur the inevitable increase of teen marijuana use. We all have an interest in keeping the drug out of reach of youth when it’s not used as medicine, so it’s always been a particularly compelling argument. teenager

But now, the latest research from Colorado – one of the first states to legalize the drug for recreational purposes – is that teen marijuana use has actually DROPPED since the drug became more widely available to the over-21 crowd.

A survey of Colorado high school students regarding their marijuana consumption was part of the biannual poll conducted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. What’s more, the percentage of high school students who used marijuana in Colorado was actually lower than the national average among their peers. Continue reading