Cannabis Counsel Movement Rallies Pot's True Believers

• Jurisdiction: California,United States,Federal
• Citation: Vol. 06 No. 2016 Pg. 01
• Publication year: 2016
• Pages: 01
• Year: 2016
• topic: Business of Law

Cannabis counsel movement rallies pot's true believers No. 2016 #01 California Bar Journal June, 2016

John Roemer, Special to the Bar Journal

In the 1990s, incorrigible reefer-puffing criminal defense legend J. Tony Serra was one of the few points where the law and marijuana use intersected.

Serra used to inhale liberally and openly at his law offices most afternoons, citing permission from his physician, Eugene "Dr. Hip" Schoenfeld. Serra claims smoking pot countered the negative effects of stress in his work and once represented San Francisco's Cannabis Cultivators Club in federal court. "Marijuana has always been my center of peace and stability," he said.

Federal anti-drug laws haven't changed, but today's culture and the justice system have evolved. Once a rarity, Serra is at the forefront of the cannabis counsel vanguard, a growing set of buttoned-down lawyers advising a new wave of cannabis entrepreneurs grappling with the state's marijuana regulation.

Serra's clients sought to operate medical marijuana dispensaries under California's new Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. But they came under assault by the U.S. Department of Justice, which refused to honor the state law.

U.S. District Judge Charles R Breyer cited the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause to enjoin six Northern California medical pot dispensaries as illicit under federal law.

That was then. In October 2015, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a series of bills designed to regulate medical marijuana producers, distributors and retailers from seed to sale. A Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, headed by a "weed czar" who formerly worked in alcoholic beverage control, is in the planning stages.

In response, the pot defense bar has expanded into a galaxy of full-service practitioners ready to aid cannabis clients with taxes, corporate transactions, licensing, land use and zoning problems, Proposition 65 environmental issues and the thickets of regulations enacted by local governments.

Today, Serra said, "I'm in the eye of the storm."

A green gold rush is on, and other lawyers besides Serra have spotted opportunity. In a shift that once seemed a pipe dream, 24 states have legalized medical marijuana, recreational use is likely to be on California’s November ballot and the old line San Francisco firm Farella Braun + Martel LLP has launched a cannabis practice group to serve as outside general counsel to marijuana-related businesses.

Farella was...