Hilary Bricken, Author at Cannabis Business Executive - Cannabis and Marijuana industry news

Ten “Must Haves” for Cannabis Businesses in 2022

By Hilary Bricken, Principal at Harris Bricken I started as a lawyer in the cannabis industry in 2010. Twelve years in there has been immense progress and maturation at the business level for cannabis licensees. This post is dedicated to…

ICYMI: Adding Marijuana to a NIST Handbook

January 20, 2022
Hilary Bricken
Federal
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by Hilary Bricken, Principal at Harris Bricken Not many people get excited about revisions and updates to the very dry National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) handbooks. For example, the NIST 44 Handbook contains the “Specifications, Tolerances, and Other…

California Cannabis Taxes: Revolt vs. Reform

December 22, 2021
Hilary Bricken
California
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By Hilary Bricken, Principal at Harris Bricken California cannabis taxes continue to plague the industry. California cannabis taxes are undoubtedly high (although not the highest in the country). The truth is that that’s not changing anytime soon. A few weeks…

ESG and Cannabis is No Easy Task Right Now

by Hilary Bricken, Principal Harris Bricken Socially responsible and “sustainable” investing is picking up in popularity across retail and institutional investors alike. According to Wikipedia, “[i]n less than 20 years, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility…

Looking Back on 25 Years of California Cannabis: Growing Pains (STILL) Persist

by Hilary Bricken, Principal Harris Bricken On the 25th anniversary of Prop. 215, I was recently interviewed on KCRW to give my take on how California (and specifically the City of Los Angeles) has done when it comes to legalizing…

Wait a Minute Mr. Postman: USPS Nixes Cannabis and Hemp ENDS in the Mail

by Hilary Bricken, Principal, Harris Bricken Back in 2015, we wrote about the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”) taking issue with companies placing cannabis ads in the mail. In a written notice dated November 27, 2015, issued by the Portland, Oregon,…

California’s Adopted Emergency Cannabis Regulations: What Made the Cut

By Hilary Bricken, Principle, Harris Bricken We wrote a couple of times about the Department of Cannabis Control’s (DCC) proposed emergency regulations. See here and here. Under those regulations, some interesting changes were proposed around the definitions of owners and…

California Cannabis Owners and FIHs Get New Treatment Under DCC Emergency Cannabis Regulations

September 22, 2021
Hilary Bricken
California
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By Hilary Bricken, Principle, Harris Bricken I’ve preached before on the blog about how often our firm gets pulled into M&A deals where the parties have screwed up reporting the transaction to cannabis regulators on both the state and local…

Industrial Hemp Products, Including CBD, are Finally Legit in California

September 16, 2021
Hilary Bricken
California, Hemp Business Executive, Spotlight
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By Hilary Bricken, Principle at Harris Bricken Many people ignore or just don’t want to believe the fact that, until recently, California was a bit of a villain when it comes to the manufacture, distribution, and sale of industrial hemp…

When the Hunted Becomes the Hunter: Cannabis Companies Turn to RICO

by Hilary Bricken, Principle at Harris Bricken We’ve been writing about Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) lawsuits and cannabis companies since 2015. RICO has been a thorn in the side of the cannabis industry, but not necessarily for…

The Future of Cannabis Won’t be Decided by the Feds. It’s the Locals.

by Hillary Bricken, Founder at Harris Bricken Nationwide, cannabis companies and advocates are hailing the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act as the savior of the future of cannabis (a copy of the bill is here). If the Act passes, we…

Cannabis and NFTs: Collectible Art or Regulated Ads?

Back in 2015, when I was a regular columnist for Above The Law, I wrote a piece called “Cannabis Advertising: Is Pot Obscene?“. That article focused on general speech issues around cannabis ads. We’ve also written over the years about…

Cannabis Lawyers and Law Firms: The Good the Bad and the Ugly

By Hilary Bricken, Principle at Harris Bricken The state-legal cannabis industry is often a cutthroat place. State cannabis regulations are difficult to navigate and it usually takes significant capital to get a cannabis business up and running. And even once…

Washington State Considers the Future of Its Cannabis Industry

I absolutely loved Washington State when I lived there. I lived in Seattle for seven years and was one of the first attorneys in the state to take on medical cannabis business clients in 2010 and then again with adult…

ICYMI: Here Comes California-Certified “Comparable-to-Organic” Cannabis

By Hilary Bricken, Co-Founder, Harris Bricken Due to the federal illegality of cannabis, cannabis businesses don’t receive normal treatment from the federal government (with maybe one or two exceptions, like the NLRB and the 2014 FinCEN guidance for access to…