Page 33 - BusinessWest March 7, 2022

Julie Steiner welcomes Cannabis Control Commissioner Steven Hoffman as a guest lecturer in one of her Cannabis Law and Policy classes.
tion. That ultimately went away because courts reversed the bar stance on that, but it was a risky time. It was really, really interesting.”
That’s one reason why she applauds her uni- versity and its administration for being forward- thinking in establishing curriculum around this rapidly evolving topic, specifically a course called Cannabis Law and Policy. She proposed the course in 2015 and, after a year of legwork, and study, started teaching it in 2016, just a couple months before voters made adult-use cannabis legal in Massachusetts — but long before busi- nesses actually started to open.
“Our primary mission was, and still is, lawyer competency,” Steiner explained. “I try to touch upon every facet that I can of the industry, teach- ing aspiring lawyers but also the practicing bar about how to counsel clients.
“I call the most risky the ‘plant touchers’ — cultivators, manufacturers, and retailers. They’re the most highly regulated and most vulnerable
to prosecution if they do anything wrong,” she went on. “That requires a lot of competence, legal advice, knowledge about regulatory regimes,
and ability to keep abreast of the ever-changing landscape.”
And changing it is, she emphasized. “I find I can’t rely on anything I said last month without updating it.”
Beyond the plant touchers, plenty of other types of businesses have been involved in the world of cannabis, from lightbulb suppliers for growers to drivers who transport money; from property landlords to IT and security firms. And the list goes on.
Sensing that this new industry would need legal guidance, Steiner not only created the
course, but was involved in bringing Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) regulatory public hearings to the law school starting in 2018. The following year, the city of Springfield retained her to serve as a consultant to develop a process to solicit and select marijuana shops.
And she’s become a sought-after resource on cannabis law, having been been interviewed by
“Cannabis is federally illegal, even though it’s technically legal in Massachusetts. How are lawyers to navigate this whole murky system?”
regional and national media; published scholarly articles in many legal journals; advised educa- tional institutions on the topic of drug policy; and lectured on the topic in WNE’s Mini Law School and Road Show programs.
It’s a field, she notes, that has already crept into numerous law niches, from banking and finance to taxation; from real estate to employ- ment law; from intellectual-property law to pros- ecution and defense, just to name a few. “Can- nabis law touches on all of it. It’s a serious and evolving subject field in the law.”
Legal, Yet Illegal
The Cannabis Law and Policy course, WNE’s
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