Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.

This week, Oklahoma announced a special election to decide on legalizing adult-use cannabis. Massachusetts regulators said they were aware of safety concerns at a cannabis production facility following a worker’s death there. Switzerland legalized medical marijuana. And finally, if you’d like some cannabis in Toronto, Uber Eats is only a click away.Continue Reading The Week in Weed: October 21, 2022

Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.

This week brought the long-awaited South Dakota Supreme Court decision on their adult-use ballot initiative, and, spoiler alert: it wasn’t what cannabis advocates had hoped.  Yet another industry comes out in favor of marijuana banking.  Germany may legalize cannabis.  Uber Eats
Continue Reading The Week in Weed: December 3, 2021

Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.

COVID-19 continues to dominate the news – no surprise there.  Whether it’s federal relief or state legalization roadblocks, the virus is everywhere.  But there is some other news: the IRS seems likely to increase auditing of marijuana businesses, and Epidiolex has
Continue Reading The Week in Weed: April 10, 2020

Recently, I had the opportunity to moderate panels on cannabis and commercial real estate at programs held in Los Angeles and Chicago.  I won’t say it was the best of times or the worst of times, but I will say “it was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness.”

It was interesting to compare the programs and the audiences in the two cities.  In Chicago, where medical marijuana has been legal since 2014, and recreational marijuana has been legal for just over a month, people from many facets of the real estate industry — brokers, architects, contractors, real estate owners — came to learn about the new opportunities and pitfalls of the cannabis industry.  To be sure, some were experienced, having participated in the medical marijuana business, but others were, well, naïve about how pervasive local, state and even federal laws are in regulating cannabis use of commercial real estate.

In LA, where medical marijuana has been legal forever and recreational for three years, the commercial real estate industry has had enough experience with the cannabis industry to experience the impact of various laws and regulations on commercial real estate.  The audience came prepared to hear about how the cannabis and commercial real estate industries were addressing some of the issues resulting from the intersection of the industries.

Here are some key takeaways from the two panels:
Continue Reading Tale of Two Cities: Cannabis and Commercial Real Estate

Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.

Our first big story is legalization in Illinois.  The law takes effect on January 1, 2020.  That makes 11 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized recreational cannabis.

If you’re wondering why Illinois has succeeded where New York
Continue Reading The Week in Weed: June 28, 2019

Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.

Let’s start off this week’s post with some international news.  The World Health Organization is recommending that cannabis should be removed as a controlled substance under international treaties.  The recommendations will come up for a vote in March of this year.
Continue Reading The Week in Weed: February 8, 2019

Welcome to our end of the year wrap-up post for The Week in Weed; it’s hard to believe another year has come and (almost) gone, but the calendar doesn’t lie.  In what we are calling an homage to Dave Barry and his always hilarious Year in Review, we’ll organize these stories by month.

Without further ado, here’s a look at the stories that grabbed our attention in 2018.
Continue Reading The Week, No Make that the Year, in Weed: 2018

Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.  And what a week it was!

Michigan legalized recreational cannabis, Utah and Missouri voted yes on medical marijuana, and several pro-legalization candidates were elected as governors.  Meanwhile, North Dakota voted against legalization and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (sponsor of the legislation
Continue Reading The Week in Weed: November 9, 2018