Cannabis Law

Carlton Fields counsels and represents clients who cultivate, process, and dispense cannabis and cannabis products as well as ancillary businesses. Our attorneys are actively representing clients in both the hemp and marijuana industries. We advise cultivators, retailers, manufacturers, and investors in starting, funding, and insuring their businesses while addressing legal and regulatory hurdles faced by cannabis industry entrepreneurs. Some of the services offered to our marijuana industry clients include:

• Participation in the process to create a regulatory structure
• Preparing applications for licensure
• Ensuring ongoing regulatory compliance
• Corporate structuring and governance
• Tax advice, specifically navigating the provisions of Section 280(e)
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Land use assistance for dispensary locations

We have assisted clients in obtaining licenses through both application and litigation in highly regulated markets. We have also helped clients sell their licenses when appropriate. Carlton Fields also counsels clients who do business with companies involved in the legal medical and recreational marijuana industry, including banks and credit unions, real estate firms, landlords, and insurance companies. We advise on:

• All aspects of banking compliance and engagement with prudential regulators and FinCEN regarding cannabis-related businesses and civil regulatory investigations at the state and federal levels.
• Legal and ethical considerations arising from the production, sale, and use of the proceeds of the sale of marijuana, including under 18 U.S.C. § 1956, the federal money laundering statute.
• Issues faced by title insurance companies, lenders, creditors, real estate owners, developers, and investors that negotiate with and insure cannabis-related businesses.
• Land use regulations at the local level regarding the siting of dispensaries, urban farming, and other cannabis-related businesses.
• Labor and employment issues, including developing company policies and restrictions about employees’ legal drug use.
• All aspects of tax issues.
• Intellectual property, marketing, and labeling laws.
• Emerging issues related to this evolving industry, including potential antitrust implications.

Our interdisciplinary team combines decades of experience in business, real estate, financial, and insurance litigation and counseling, as well as former federal bank regulators, state and federal drug and narcotics prosecutors, attorneys in health care, tax, IP, First Amendment rights, antitrust and competition law, and employment attorneys. Our professionals serve in various state bar associations’ cannabis committees and write and speak on cannabis industry issues regularly. Our attorneys work in states across the country as the hemp and marijuana industries spread nationwide.