Crafting effective marijuana laws and regulations requires specialized knowledge that few governmental entities possess. Vicente Sederberg LLP is uniquely qualified to assist local, state, and national governments with their policy and economic needs thanks to our expertise in analyzing cannabis markets and unrivaled experience with drafting and implementing marijuana laws and regulations. We offer public sector clients the data and knowledge they need, and we help them use it to draft responsible cannabis laws. 

OUR SERVICES

VS provides a full suite of legal and advisory services to assist governmental bodies with the development and implementation of medical and adult-use cannabis laws and regulations, with a focus on public health and safety objectives and efficient administration. Because each government and community is unique, our services are tailored to the individual needs of each public-sector client. We offer comprehensive guidance on a wide variety of subjects, including:

• Licensing
• Testing
• Delivery
• Product safety
• Social use
• Hemp and CBD
• Operational regulations
• Seed-to-sale tracking
• Packaging and labeling
• Community plans
• Social equity plans
• Tax and fee structures

LAWS & REGULATIONS

As a leader in the cannabis policy and business communities, VS has been intimately involved in shaping marijuana and hemp laws and regulations, as well as standards and best practices for the industry. We understand where and how laws are working and how they can be improved upon, and we work with public sector clients to produce policies that are mindful of potential compliance, implementation, and enforcement issues.

VS has extensive experience identifying core legal and regulatory issues and crafting solutions that balance competing concerns and are still effective in practice. We will work collaboratively with stakeholders to identify the broad range of interests that exist and to create policies that match the desires of your administration and the needs of your community. Depending on your specific needs, our assistance can be limited to providing recommendations or comments on a single draft or existing policy, or it may cover the entire drafting process from planning to passage, with ongoing advisory, analytical, and drafting services.

RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

VS applies research methods rooted in economic theory and statistical analysis to inform regulatory policymaking in the rapidly growing medical and adult-use cannabis markets. Our analytical services are customized to meet the individual needs of each public-sector client and provide a data-driven basis for their marijuana policy decisions. We provide market, policy, economic, financial, and statistical research for both public and private sector organizations, including marijuana market quantification, demand forecasting, production control model evaluation, tax revenue estimations, economic impact modeling, and medical marijuana patient population analysis.

SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE

VS was founded in Colorado, where members of our team led the drafting of Amendment 64, which established the state's adult-use cannabis market; served on the governor’s Amendment 64 Implementation Task Force; and chaired many of the Marijuana Enforcement Division’s highly successful negotiated rulemaking working groups. At the local level, VS was hired by Pueblo County to help draft ordinances and regulations governing personal cultivation, social use, and the cultivation of industrial hemp. Through working group participation and our professional relationships with prominent state and local officials, VS has continued to shape the regulations under which the Colorado cannabis system operates.

VS’s opinions are not just sought out and respected in Colorado, but in other states and even in other countries. Our team’s collective experience includes:

• Advising lawmakers and regulators from jurisdictions across the U.S., as well as in more than a dozen countries spanning four continents. We have also assisted advocates in the drafting of several successful cannabis-related ballot initiatives.

• Assisting elected officials in Guam with an overhaul of the territory’s medical cannabis statute and development of a comprehensive adult-use legalization bill. 

• Providing the U.S. Virgin Islands Bureau of Economic Research and the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce with economic analysis and policy guidance that aided in the establishment of a regulatory system for medical cannabis. We provided drafting, comments, testimony, and ongoing consulting to help officials better understand several issues, including the domestic and tourism markets for medical cannabis and the unique legal and regulatory difficulties posed by the islands' geography.

• Engaging with the City of Cathedral City (CA) to assist in its development of comprehensive medical cannabis regulations under MCRSA, including facilitation of community and City Council question and comment, policy advisement, drafting, and implementation. 

• Consultation with the City of Santa Rosa (CA) in preparing medical cannabis policies, including policy presentations to community and Council meetings, advisement on the intersect of MCRSA, the Compassionate Use Act/SB 420, and AUMA, and development of the city’s prospective comprehensive medical cannabis regulations in close coordination with city staff.

• Assisting the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries with public policy memos that lent to the passage of legislation in British Columbia that is designed to facilitate the transition of unregulated medical cannabis dispensaries into regulated adult-use cannabis retail stores.

• Organizing comprehensive cannabis fact-finding trips to Colorado for dozens of local, state, and national government officials from around the country and across the globe, including exclusive tours of licensed facilities; private meetings with Colorado’s key regulators, decision makers, and experts; and in-depth cannabis policy briefings and ongoing advisory services.