Cal NORML Legal Seminar

January 20, 2024

Jack London Square

Oakland, CA (and online via Zoom)

5.5 MCLE Credits Pending

Learn about new California laws affecting cannabis consumers and businesses from top attorneys in the field. California attorneys can earn MCLE credits for attending.

This event will be live onsite in Jack London Square, Oakland. Attendees can also participate via Zoom.

PRELIMINARY AGENDA (Subject to Change) 

Doors open / sign in 9:30 AM

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM New California Cannabis Laws
Employment Rights  (Quirk AB 2188 + Bradford SB 700 bills)
Pain Patients’ Rights (AB 1954)
Ryan’s Law / Stern Bill (SB 302)

11:00 – 11:30 Cannabis Consumption Lounges and Events
Legal and liability considerations for Businesses

11:30 – 12:15  Local Issues
AB 1186
Licensing
CEQA

LUNCH BREAK 12:15 – 1:15
Competency and Ethics Presentation

1:15 – 2:00 PM Cannabis Business Law
Receiverships
Taxes
Packaging and Labeling (AB 1207, SB 508)

2:00 – 2:30 PM Hemp and Hemp-Derived Psychoactive Products 

BREAK 2:30 – 2:45

2:45 – 3:45 New Cannabis Enforcement Laws: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

3:45 – 4:15 Federal Law: What Rescheduling Will Mean – Khurshid Khoja

4:20 Break

4:30 – 5 PM  Psychedelic Law 

PRESENTERS: 

Ariel Clark is an attorney and co-founder of Clark Howell LLP, a women-steered law firm focused on cannabis, hemp and psychedelics. As decriminalization and research efforts expand across California and the nation for plant-based and other historically misunderstood compounds, Clark Howell LLP is actively engaged in the conversation and helping to shape policy that emphasizes open source, ethical business models that reimagine a new role for capitalism in commercialization.

Ariel is a founding Board Member of the Psychedelic Bar Association (PBA), and is the Board Representative to the Religious Use Committee and participates in the Legislation and Regulation Committee. She is General Legal Counsel to Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and is on the Board. She is also a member of the Council for the Protection of Sacred Plants. Among other organizational leadership roles, she founded and ran the Los Angeles Cannabis Task Force, she co-founded and serves on the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Cannabis Law Section, and she co-founded the Cannaboss Womxn’s Circle. Her organization affiliations have included the International Cannabis Bar Association, the California Native American Cannabis Association, and the California and National Cannabis Industry Associations. She is licensed in California; J.D., University of California Berkeley School of Law (2005); B.A. in Religious Studies, University of Michigan (2000).

Hirsh Jain is the Founder of Ananda Strategy, a consultancy that serves many of California’s leading cannabis brands and retailers, helping guide their competitive licensing efforts, expansion strategy, regulatory compliance and M&A activity within California.

Hirsh began his cannabis journey he was 18 years old, working in UC Berkeley’s Public Defender’s Officer defending students that were accused of cannabis violations by the University. After graduating, Hirsh attended Harvard Law School, where his focus was the legal architecture and social impacts of The War on Drugs. He spent several years working in management consulting and the tech industry before joining the cannabis industry in 2018 as the West Coast Director of Government Affairs for MedMen, a Los-Angeles based cannabis retailer. He went on to work for Caliva, a San Jose-based cannabis brand, as its Director of Government Affairs. Hirsh serves on the Board of Los Angeles and California NORML and the Los Angeles Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, and is as a Workshop Instructor at Success Centers, a San Francisco-based cannabis equity and educational non-profit.

Khurshid Khoja is CEO of Greenbridge Corporate Counsel, P.C. a business law firm he founded in 2012, which represents legal cannabis and psychedelics-related enterprises on regulatory and transactional matters. He’s participated in legislative and initiative drafting, stakeholder meetings, executive agency outreach and rulemaking proceedings in connection with California’s cannabis laws and regulations, including Proposition 64 and the Medicinal and Adult Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), a well as the Minority Cannabis Business Association’s Model Municipal Social Equity Ordinance.

Khurshid serves as Chair Emeritus of the Board of Directors of the National Cannabis Industry Association, as the Co-chair of NCIA’s Policy Council.  He has previously served on the Board of the Minority Cannabis Business Association and as Co-chair of its Policy Committee, as well as serving as a founding board member of the California Cannabis Industry Association and as its General Counsel. He was profiled in The National Law Journal’s first ever Cannabis Law Trailblazers’ list in 2018, was awarded NCIA’s Inaugural Steve Fox Excellence in Advocacy Award, and he’s been named to the annual Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list multiple times. He was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, has twice received Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s Unsung Hero Award, and Arcview Investor Network’s Outstanding Member Award. His work has been profiled in in Bruce Barcott’s book Weed the People, and his earliest days in California’s pre-regulated industry are chronicled in Doug Fine’s book Too High To Fail.

Lauren Mendelsohn is a cannabis attorney and activist. In college at the University of Maryland, Lauren was involved with NORML and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). When she moved to the West Coast for law school at the University of California, Irvine, she started a new chapter of Law Students for Sensible Drug Policy there, and became an active member of Orange County NORML.

She is now the Senior Associate Attorney at the Law Offices of Omar Figueroa in Sonoma County, one of the leading cannabis law firms in the California cannabis space. Lauren focuses on cannabis permitting and licensing, regulatory compliance, intellectual property, government affairs (including drafting local ordinances and citizen initiatives, lobbying decision-making bodies, and appearing for clients at administrative hearings), and post-conviction relief. She sits on the boards of the International Cannabis Bar Association and the Sonoma County Growers Alliance.

William Panzer is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley and Golden Gate University School of Law. He has been practicing law in the Bay Area for thirty years, specializing in cannabis defense. Panzer is a co-author of California’s Proposition 215, the nation’s first law legalizing the use of cannabis by patients pursuant to a physician’s recommendation. In his practice he has represented patients, growers, and medical cannabis dispensaries throughout California in state and federal court, at both the trial and appellate level.

Bill has lectured at numerous NORML legal seminars, conferences and other events on cannabis law and related issues. He is a former winner of the NORML “Al Horn Award” and a two-time winner of the Sonoma Alliance for Medical Marijuana’s “Compassion In Action” Award, as well as a High Times magazine “Freedom Fighter of the Month.”

More to be announced