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McAllister Garfield is a law firm with lawyers in Colorado, California, and Oregon. Primarily, we focus on Colorado and California, because those are the two most successful states to date and the biggest markets that are both adult use and medical. We start companies up, help them raise money, and help them design return to […]

Late Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado indicated a shift in enforcement strategy regarding state-licensed marijuana businesses in Colorado. The acting U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer said in an interview with The Denver Post that his office is working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and drug task forces around Colorado to bring […]

It is harvesting time in Colorado and before you buy hemp or hemp seeds, you may need to obtain a license from the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) first. The CDA requires all purchasers of commodities and farm products in the state to obtain licenses. These licensing requirements extend to industrial hemp and industrial hemp […]

    In 17 states, there is some form of hemp legalization, including Colorado, California, Florida, and other major states. Hemp and CBD are now everywhere. If you go to a massage studio, you’ll find Hemp CBD lotion. If you go to a drugstore, you’ll find Hemp lip balm. You’ll find Hemp shampoo. These products […]

On September 21, 2018, the Colorado Department of Revenue Marijuana Enforcement Division the (“MED”), the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (“CDPHE”), and the Colorado Department of Agriculture (“CDA”) issued a bulletin authorizing licensed Retail Marijuana Testing Facilities to test industrial hemp and industrial hemp products derived from hemp cultivated by a CDA registrant. […]

We started representing the first operators in Colorado in 2008, 2009. The best businesses in this industry have a combination of real business players and legacy operators who understand the culture; who understand the plant, but we also have embraced the new investment money that is coming. We represent several private equity funds that have […]

40 states have legalized cannabis or hemp in one form or another. That’s 28 states with medical marijuana, 8 states with adult use marijuana, and 17 states have some form of legalization of hemp or CBD, which is the non-psychoactive cannabinoid that comes from the hemp plant and helps with seizure disorders. So in 40 […]

What you need to understand is that cannabis is a different area of law. This is not franchise law. This is not regular business law. I call it the cannabis-only transactions. That there are provisions in your cannabis contracts and your cannabis legal dealings that you won’t see in any other form of law. You […]

Friends, McAllister Garfield’s Los Angeles focused lawyers (Sean McAllister, Kresimir Peharda, and Navid Brewster) will be presenting a workshop at the State of Cannabis Conference in Long Beach, CA on September 25, 2018. The workshop will focus on “Attracting Investment to Your Cannabis Business.” For more information, see https://www.stateofcannabis.org/workshops.html Please join us as we gather […]

National firms don’t understand the complex regulatory regime of cannabis, and that’s what McAllister Garfield specializes in. We specialize in constructing business transaction through the lens of a complicated regulatory scheme. If entrepreneurs go out and hire some big firm that doesn’t understand the cannabis regulatory regime state by state, you will see transaction documents […]

A Permitted Economic Interest (PEI) is a future contingent equity interest approved by the state regulatory agency. We see these PEIs approved in a variety of fashions including option agreements, warrants, or most commonly, a convertible promissory note. The concept is that if a lender provides a business money, instead of recovering the debt owed […]

Any individual who wants to take ownership in a marijuana business who doesn’t have one year or more of Colorado residency, has to complete a Pre-Suitability Application. The Pre-Suitability Application is costly, time consuming and financially burdensome and it includes a complete audit of all of your assets. McAllister Garfield has worked with dozens of […]