General Industry

The State of Colorado has taken a major step towards opening its marijuana industry to outside investment in what could be a transformative piece of legislation.

On Monday, March 4, bipartisan legislation unanimously passed the House Committee on Finance that would allow for an increase in marijuana investment in Colorado. The legislation seeks to address the need for investment dollars while maintaining strict regulations and oversight of the industry. The legislation removes the statutory requirement of background checks for owners of less than 10% of a marijuana business, thus opening the state’s marijuana market to outside investors as well allowing marijuana businesses to offer their employees equity in the company. In addition, the legislation outlines requirements for publicly traded companies to both invest in licensed marijuana businesses and to hold Colorado marijuana licenses. The legislation will next face a floor vote, where it is widely believed to have the support needed to pass, then it will go to the Senate and if passed, on to the state’s governor for final passage.

Cannabis industry participants face heightened risks when purchasing and using insurance products.

Generally speaking, disputes between carriers and insureds are not infrequent; however, coverage disputes in the cannabis industry can be of a different caliber altogether. There is ample evidence suggesting that, on a very basic level, cannabis industry participants face heightened risks when purchasing…

Some cannabis cultivators and manufacturers believe they are exempt from OSHA visits because the Federal government does not recognize cannabis as a legal drug. On June 19, 2018, a worker in a California cannabis manufacturing facility was using propane to extract oil from cannabis flowers. The propane ignited and exploded, leaving the employee with serious injuries.  The…

After a lengthy compromise process, The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill) was passed on December 12, 2018 by Congress and delivered to the White House for the President to sign. The 2018 Farm Bill will replace the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2014, which expired on September 30, 2018. Distributing more than $850 billion, the 2018 Farm Bill is an enormous piece of legislation and funds programs such as crop insurance, school lunches, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Integrated into the massive omnibus Farm Bill is the bipartisan Hemp Farming Act of 2018, spearheaded by Senator Mitch McConnell. The Hemp Farming Act will legalize at the federal level the production of industrial hemp, defined as Cannabis sativa L. plants containing less than three-tenths of a percent of THC, the intoxicating chemical in marijuana. The low concentration of THC makes these plants unsuitable for marijuana production, which remains federally illegal.

First and foremost, the 2018 Farm Bill will abolish this inconsistent treatment by removing industrial hemp from the definition of “marihuana” in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). In addition, tetrahydrocannabinols contained in industrial hemp will be removed from the purview of the CSA. This amendment to the CSA will decriminalize the production and use of the Cannabis sativa L. plant and its derived products that match the definition of industrial hemp, such as hemp seed oil, CBD oil, hemp fibers and hemp paper.