Lawsuits

The city council in Springfield, Massachusetts has launched an investigation into a $200,000 donation made by a cannabis company to determine if the payment could be a bribe.

Big Sky Scientific, whose 6,700-pound shipment of industrial hemp was confiscated in January by Idaho State Police, says it will drop its lawsuit if the impounded hemp shipment is returned. It’s not known whether the hemp would still be usable.

A U.S. District Court judge in Oregon will let a racketeering lawsuit brought by a vineyard against a neighboring cannabis cultivator move forward after the vineyard showed evidence of a financial loss since its neighbor began operations.

A judge in Quebec’s Superior Court has ruled that the current provincial ban on homegrown cannabis is unconstitutional; experts say, however, that a similar ban could be carried out lawfully.

Dr. Sue Sisley of the Scottsdale Research Institute is suing the DEA over hurdles to cannabis research — specifically, that government-sourced cannabis is nothing like the products being used en masse throughout legal states.

In a unanimous ruling, the Maryland Court of Appeals said that police cannot use cannabis odor alone as justification for conducting a personal search during a vehicle stop; vehicle searches, however, are still allowed.

Utah’s Supreme Court has sided with lawmakers and the governor in a dispute over whether officials could replace a voter-approved medical cannabis initiative with a more limited law.

A court in Florida has ruled that the medical cannabis rules put in place by lawmakers created an “oligopoly” inconsistent with the constitutional amendment that a huge majority of voters approved in 2016.

A Minnesota hemp farmer is suing the state to protect his business and current hemp crop after police say they found hemp products from his farm containing THC that exceeded the 0.3 percent industrial hemp threshold.

A unanimous ruling for the Arizona Supreme Court clarifies that medical cannabis extractions are indeed legal, shielding (and exonerating) patients and dispensaries from hardliner lawmakers and regulators.

Los Angeles officials have filed their first civil lawsuit against an unlicensed cannabis dispensary, seeking $20,000 per day the shop was allegedly open and selling to customers illegally.

Maryland medical cannabis firm Curio is filing suit against the state Medical Cannabis Commission for allegedly violating its own rules by soliciting license applications without first completing a supply and demand survey.