Study Guides for Law Student Success

Available to students & faculty on West Academic.
"Concise yet comprehensive text that provides an overview of marijuana law. It discusses important issues pertaining to public policy, legal history, constitutional law, criminal law, and jurisprudence, as well as practical legal issues that concern both marijuana-related businesses and individuals, in areas such as banking, employment, tax, bankruptcy, and child custody. The text provides in-depth coverage of federal laws governing marijuana, along with an overview of international, state, and local laws relating to marijuana regulation. It also provides an overview of arguments for and against medical and/or recreational legalization, as well as an analysis of how marijuana compares to other potentially harmful substances, both legal and illegal."

"Maine has allowed prescribing, and limited possession, of medical marijuana since 1999 but the law lacked any distribution mechanism and questions arose of noncompliance with federal law and of how patients could legally obtain the prescribed marijuana. On November 3, 2009 Maine voters approved Question 5, which enacted the citizen-initiated bill, "An act to establish the Maine Medical Marijuana Act" (LD 975, IB 2). "

"On November 8, 2016 Maine voters approved Question 1 and joined eight other states to have legalized the recreational use, retail sale and taxation of marijuana, also referred to as adult use marijuana. Following a recount and certification of election results the law was enacted as IB 2015, c. 5, “An Act to Legalize Marijuana”, and codified at the statutory citations listed in the Implementation section to the left."

As more states legalize cannabis, the push to “deschedule” it from the Controlled Substances Act is gaining momentum. At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first conventional drug containing a cannabinoid derived from cannabis—cannabidiol (CBD) for two rare seizure disorders. This would all seem to bode well for proponents of full federal legalization of medical cannabis. But some traditional providers are wary of drug companies pulling medical cannabis into the regular small molecule drug development system. The FDA’s focus on precise analytical characterization and on individual active and inactive ingredients may be fundamentally inconsistent with the “entourage effects” theory of medical cannabis. Traditional providers may believe that descheduling cannabis would free them to promote and distribute their products free of federal intervention, both locally and nationally. Other producers appear to assume that descheduling would facilitate a robust market in cannabis-based edibles anddietary supplements. In fact, neither of these things is true. If cannabis were descheduled, the FDA’s complex and comprehensive regulatory frameworkgoverning foods, drugs, and dietary supplements would preclude much of this anticipated commerce. For example, any medical claims about cannabis would require the seller to complete the rigorous new drug approval process, the cost of which will be prohibitive for most current traditional providers. Likely also unexpected to some, there is no pathway forward for conventional foods containing cannabis constituents, with the (probably exclusive) exception of certain hemp seed ingredients, if those foods cross state lines. And it will certainly come as a shock to many that federal law already prohibits the sale of dietary supplements containing CBD—including those already on the market as well as those made from “hemp,” which has recently been descheduled under the 2018 Farm Bill. This Article describes in detail the surprising reach of the FDA and then outlines three modest, but legal, pathways forward for cannabis-based products in a world where cannabis has been descheduled.

"This article discusses legal considerations for the private equity industry interested in investing in businesses that directly handle marijuana. "