Magnifying glass focusing on a document titled "cannabis contract" with an authority's cannabis leaf symbol in the background.
Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Contracts 101: Authority and Why it Matters

Cannabis contracts are – in the simplest sense – binding agreements between two parties. But how you get to something being “binding” can be complicated. And in the cannabis industry, where things move a mile a second and people often overlook basic contract requirements, the results can be disastrous. Today I want to focus on

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Canna Law Blog

Common Pitfalls in Cannabis Brand License Agreements

Cannabis companies and (depending on the state) brands often use license agreements to grow their brands. If done correctly, they can be a huge driver of revenue for the brands and licensees, and can grow the good will of the brand across a particular territory. However, they are notoriously easy to botch. A bad license

cannabis due diligence
Canna Law Blog

Investing in Cannabis: Five Due Diligence Red Flags

Our cannabis team has performed due diligence on countless business purchases, investments, loans, and just about every other kind of transaction you can imagine. As you can imagine, we’ve seen some pretty bad and even sketchy things over the years. With rescheduling on the horizon (see here and here), we expect to see an increase in loans, investments,

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Canna Law Blog

Changing Interstate Cannabis Sales

As states slowly but inevitably continue to legalize cannabis medically or recreationally, we often need to be reminded that cannabis is still illegal on the federal level. Due to this widespread, ineffective prohibition, the cannabis industry and its many operators must follow a very extensive and strict set of parameters to ensure that they remain

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Canna Law Blog

President Biden’s Cannabis Pardons

Similarly to many career politicians who now support criminal justice reform after decades of supporting the most unjust policing and sentencing laws, President Joe Biden has been notably lacking in keeping the pro-cannabis and criminal justice reform promises he ran on in the contentious and chaotic election that was 2020. Along with still referencing the

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Canna Law Blog

Grading the Presidential Candidates on Cannabis: Joe Biden

Gentle readers, once again we find ourselves in a Presidential election year. Feel free to join me in tuning out the deluge of reporting and social media as to matters you cannot control in the slightest, and which are mostly negative and discouraging. Except for this blog post, which I promise will be great. In

close corporation
Canna Law Blog

What is the Deal with California Close Corporations?

We spill a lot of ink on the Canna Law Blog talking about different types of business entities that cannabis entrepreneurs often use. In most cases though, the choice is between LLC and corporation. It may come as a surprise to some readers that some states have many different subcategories of corporations, including California. Today

cannabis contract
Canna Law Blog

Risk Allocation in Cannabis Contracts

One of the main reasons why I am such a vocal supporter of written cannabis contracts is allocation of risk and liabilities. Parties to a cannabis contract have a number of ways that they can allocate risks and liabilities that they just won’t have in a “handshake” deal. Today I’ll explore six of the top

cannabis businesses
Canna Law Blog

Strategies for Distressed Cannabis Businesses

It’s pretty easy to write about everything that’s going wrong in today’s cannabis industry. Today, I want to change gears and talk about some of the strategies we’ve seen work for distressed cannabis businesses in the past. Yes, some of these strategies may seem obvious at first. But pulling them off correctly – especially in