Cannabis & Psychedelics On the 2024 Ballot
The DEA Is Knocking at Your Door . . . Are You Prepared? – Diagnosing Health Care
If Cannabis Is Reclassified, What Will Happen to the Marketplace? – Diagnosing Health Care
Cannabis Law Now Podcast: What’s Next for Schedule III Marijuana
Podcast - DEA Plants the Seed for Rescheduling Marijuana: What's Next?
The Presumption of Innocence Podcast: Special Edition | Episode 36 - Rolling Change: The DEA Turns Over a New Leaf on Marijuana Scheduling
Cannabis Law Now Podcast: THC Infused Beverages: Cantrip's Journey Through the Hemp-Derived Looking Glass
Cannabis Law Now Podcast: The ‘CannaBoies' Lawsuit and Why it Matters
Law of the Land? Cannabis, Preemption, and SCOTUS [More with McGlinchey Ep. 37]
Understanding the Psychedelics Renaissance Podcast
[Podcast] Virginia Seeks to Become the Next State to Decriminalize Possession of Psychedelic Mushrooms
Minor Cannabinoids: Exploring the Science, Legality, & Opportunities
A history of the decline and rise of the marijuana empire
Canna We Talk Cannabis? Emerging Topics in Cannabis Law
2019 Cannabis & Co: Addressing Cannabis in the Workplace (Part 2) - Proposition 64
Podcast: Non-binding Guidance: FDA’s Regulation of Products Containing CBD
Part 1 of 2: The Impact of Marijuana for Employers
As you might have guessed from the title of this post, we are returning to cover new developments in the United States v. Sirois case. A few months ago, the First Circuit released an opinion that we discussed in an earlier...more
In past years we have discussed how opioid-related enforcement efforts have remained a top federal and state priority (here, here, and here). In 2024, opioid-related enforcement efforts continued across the entire opioid...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) have historically focused their virtual health care enforcement efforts on “traditional”...more
On June 27, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important decision for doctors who have been convicted of violating the federal Controlled Substances Act in connection with the nation’s opioid crisis. In Ruan v. United...more
Civil lawsuits are an unavoidable and expected consequence of operating in a heavily regulated industry. While CEOs and other pharmaceutical executives may lose sleep over the outcome of civil trials and the potential...more
As discussed in our article recently published by Law360, criminal health care enforcement in 2019 was in many ways a continuation of 2018, with opioid-related enforcement continuing to be the clear top priority for the...more
On May 2, 2019, a jury sitting in the District of Massachusetts convicted five senior executives of Insys Therapeutics, Inc. (Insys) with racketeering conspiracy in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1962(d)....more
On April 23, federal prosecutors announced the first-ever felony charges against a drug distributor — Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Inc. (RDC) — and two of its executives for illegally distributing opioid painkillers....more
This month the Department of Justice brought a “first of its kind” action against two pharmacies, their owner, and three pharmacists for allegedly dispensing and billing Medicare for prescriptions in violation of both the...more
Canada legalized the recreational use of marijuana effective October 17, 2018. Although many American states have loosened their marijuana restrictions, including those on the U.S.-Canada border like Washington, Michigan, and...more
On January 4th, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took a big step backward. He announced that the Department of Justice rescinded the " Cole Memo " and other internal enforcement guidelines, issued under the Obama Administration...more
ON OCTOBER 2, 2012, kidnappers robbed and abducted a marijuana dispensary owner from his Newport Beach home. They then drove him to the Mojave Desert where they tortured him and demanded that he reveal where he had buried his...more
As we predicted in our year-end post on civil and criminal enforcement trends, 2018 is already off to strong start in opioid-related enforcement against individual providers and associated practices. Earlier this month, the...more
On January 4, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) position on enforcement of federal marijuana laws. Under the Obama administration, the DOJ adopted a hands-off approach to...more
On January 4, 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions officially rescinded all of the prior Obama-era Department of Justice (DOJ) marijuana-related guidance, including the so-called “Cole Memo.” That guidance had provided...more
Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a one-page memorandum on December 4th, rescinding Obama-era guidance that had allowed states to legalize medical and recreational marijuana with marginal federal interference, eliminating...more
The U.S. Department of Justice released a memorandum on December 4th, directing all U.S. Attorneys to use their prosecutorial discretion to enforce the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 with respect to the cultivation,...more
The U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo dated January 4, 2018 regarding federal marijuana enforcement policy, directing all U.S. Attorneys to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and to follow well-established...more
In part one of this series, I detailed how the U.S. Department of Justice has focused its attention on the aggressive investigation and prosecution of “pill mill” cases. See “Part One: DOJ Devotes Resources, Vows to Come...more
Before joining Burr & Forman, I was a federal prosecutor for a little over a decade focusing on health care fraud and general white collar matters. In that role, I was a member of a prosecution team that secured guilty...more
The House Appropriations Committee released the 2017 Omnibus Appropriations bill on May 1 as part of the fiscal year. Congress decided to continue the 2015 rider[1] that prohibits the Department of Justice from spending funds...more
Justice Department has options to crack down, but may galvanize the push for even wider legalization - In statements that were perhaps inevitable but nonetheless surprising to the cannabis industry, White House Press...more
On August 16, 2016, the Ninth Circuit made an unexpected decision — it enjoined a federal criminal prosecution against medical marijuana growers in the Ninth Circuit. In the published opinion1, the three-judge panel (Justices...more
Recent changes to our health care system have been at the forefront of the American news cycle for several years. But certain aspects have not received adequate attention. One example is the scrutiny federal and state...more