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Who thought marijuana law would be a thing?
Jessica McElfresh wanted to be a prosecutor
Mary Jane, meet Jessica McElfresh.
“Legalize it, don’t criticize it,” went the old Peter Tosh song. It sounds so simple — until you remember that “legalize” means bringing in the law, and the law is never simple. For the law, you need a lawyer.
Attorney Jessica McElfresh got into cannabis law “kind of by accident.” She wanted to be a prosecutor, but graduated law school just after the 2008 economic crash, when what you wanted didn’t necessarily matter. “I wound up helping a criminal defense attorney in LA and San Diego with some medical marijuana cases, and he suggested that there was more work there than I realized. And there was this strange moment in 2010 when we thought an appellate court was going to rule that cities had to allow storefront collectives in some form. My mother had been a land use consultant in Southern California, and so I had some background in how conditional use permits and things like that worked, what they were used for and why. After that, I never really left. I hunkered down during the 2011 Federal crackdown, represented some of the original 15 licensed storefronts in the city, and started consulting on some ballot initiatives.”
Today, the bulk of McElfresh’s time is spent helping prospective businesses survive the unmellow world of regulatory compliance. In an attempt to sidestep the world of filthy lucre, I asked a section on her website related to growing, but she says that’s not as much of an issue any more. “We don’t get nearly as many phone calls from people who have been raided for cultivating in the home,” partly because the cops are doing fewer raids, and partly because homeowners are growing fewer plants, “trying to navigate a very complicated and unclear set of laws about how much you can grow and what you can do with it.” Back to business it is, then.
But “complicated” and “unclear” are not words applicable only to growing. “We’re still trying to figure out what regulation should look like,” says McElfresh, “stumbling around in the dark about things like not overtaxing at both the state and local level.” We’re even fuzzy on the precise nature of the “it” in “legalize it.” She brings up the issue of intoxicating, ingestible hemp products. Google will tell you that “according to the 2018 Farm Bill, Delta 9 THC products derived from industrial hemp are considered legal at the Federal level” as long as they do not exceed a certain concentration. And yet, Governor Newsom just issued an emergency regulation banning hemp products with any detectable quantity of THC. (He argued for the protection of children; McElfresh notes that cheap hemp intoxicants were also eroding the tax base.) “Technically, there’s always a small amount,” says McElfresh. But more than that, “I’m really amused to hear some people say that Federal law is supreme when it comes to hemp products” — especially given the Federal opposition to legalized marijuana.
“The fight right now is what states can and cannot do to additionally regulate” in light of the Farm Bill. “And it’s really all over the place. It’s an area of law that people have been treating as crystal clear, but it’s actually really complicated.” Bring on the lawyers!
Here's something you might be interested in.
Who thought marijuana law would be a thing?
Jessica McElfresh wanted to be a prosecutor
Who thought marijuana law would be a thing?
Jessica McElfresh wanted to be a prosecutor
Mary Jane, meet Jessica McElfresh.
“Legalize it, don’t criticize it,” went the old Peter Tosh song. It sounds so simple — until you remember that “legalize” means bringing in the law, and the law is never simple. For the law, you need a lawyer.
Attorney Jessica McElfresh got into cannabis law “kind of by accident.” She wanted to be a prosecutor, but graduated law school just after the 2008 economic crash, when what you wanted didn’t necessarily matter. “I wound up helping a criminal defense attorney in LA and San Diego with some medical marijuana cases, and he suggested that there was more work there than I realized. And there was this strange moment in 2010 when we thought an appellate court was going to rule that cities had to allow storefront collectives in some form. My mother had been a land use consultant in Southern California, and so I had some background in how conditional use permits and things like that worked, what they were used for and why. After that, I never really left. I hunkered down during the 2011 Federal crackdown, represented some of the original 15 licensed storefronts in the city, and started consulting on some ballot initiatives.”
Today, the bulk of McElfresh’s time is spent helping prospective businesses survive the unmellow world of regulatory compliance. In an attempt to sidestep the world of filthy lucre, I asked a section on her website related to growing, but she says that’s not as much of an issue any more. “We don’t get nearly as many phone calls from people who have been raided for cultivating in the home,” partly because the cops are doing fewer raids, and partly because homeowners are growing fewer plants, “trying to navigate a very complicated and unclear set of laws about how much you can grow and what you can do with it.” Back to business it is, then.
But “complicated” and “unclear” are not words applicable only to growing. “We’re still trying to figure out what regulation should look like,” says McElfresh, “stumbling around in the dark about things like not overtaxing at both the state and local level.” We’re even fuzzy on the precise nature of the “it” in “legalize it.” She brings up the issue of intoxicating, ingestible hemp products. Google will tell you that “according to the 2018 Farm Bill, Delta 9 THC products derived from industrial hemp are considered legal at the Federal level” as long as they do not exceed a certain concentration. And yet, Governor Newsom just issued an emergency regulation banning hemp products with any detectable quantity of THC. (He argued for the protection of children; McElfresh notes that cheap hemp intoxicants were also eroding the tax base.) “Technically, there’s always a small amount,” says McElfresh. But more than that, “I’m really amused to hear some people say that Federal law is supreme when it comes to hemp products” — especially given the Federal opposition to legalized marijuana.
“The fight right now is what states can and cannot do to additionally regulate” in light of the Farm Bill. “And it’s really all over the place. It’s an area of law that people have been treating as crystal clear, but it’s actually really complicated.” Bring on the lawyers!
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