Page 34 - BusinessWest March 7, 2022

website explains, “focuses on how society has his- torically, and is currently, regulating cannabis,” also touching on legal, professional, and business ethics; enforcement policy; and much more.
Prohibition, Steiner noted, began at the state level early in the 20th century and eventually crept into the federal code. Over the past decade or so, individual states have again led the change to decriminalization, then legalization, but federal law has not followed suit ... yet.
As a result, if it wanted to, the U.S. government technically could enforce the federal Controlled
“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.”
Substances Act, which pre-empts all the conflict- ing state laws, she explained.
“Now, they can’t force states to enforce federal laws. The real conflict happens when participants, pursuant to those state regimes, start touching the plant. Once you get there, you have a conflict with the Controlled Substances Act. You have cultivation, which is prohibited. That’s where the federal government could technically come in
and enforce. But that’s not happening because the federal government is exercising enforcement restraint.”
Changing public opin- ion is a factor as well, she noted. “When I started teaching this, public sup- port was hovering just above 50% in the Gal-
lup poll. Support is now about 68%. There’s much stronger public opinion for legalization than there was back then.”
Along with the history of cannabis regulation and enforcement, Steiner discusses civil rights, mass incarceration (using Michelle Alexander’s pop- ular tome The New Jim Crow), and social equity.
“We have a robust dialogue about this. It’s very eye-opening to students,” she said, noting that drug laws regarding cannabis possession in the U.S. have historically had a fourfold dispropor- tionate impact on people of color and those of lower socioeconomic means.
“Then we start thinking about what it means to be a lawyer representing the cannabis business. We talk about what that business looks like,” she went on, noting that she previously used Colora- do and Washington as templates, but now draws on Massachusetts, since the cannabis industry has taken such deep roots here.
The Cannabis Control Commission has often used the WNE Law School as an outpost for holding public hearings and listening sessions, like this one, attended by (from left) then- commissioners Britte McBride, Shaleen Title, Chairman Steven Hoffman, and Kay Doyle.
She also talks about banking challenges and Section 280E of the federal tax code, which requires even illegal enterprises to pay taxes, which are even more onerous for cannabis busi- nesses, which can
deduct the cost of goods, but not
Law
Continued on page 50
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