Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: David Migoya

SCHOOL ADDS A NEW POT CLASS

The Sturm College of Law Will Teach Students to Represent Marijuana Clients.

University of Denver Sturm College of Law senior Madalyn McElwain 
said she was relieved to hear the school was offering the nation's 
first class on representing marijuana clients.

The third-year lawyer-to-be wanted to practice in the intricate and 
quickly changing world of marijuana law, one that for years has 
ping-ponged between the criminal and civil sectors, but couldn't talk about it.

"I had to keep my intent quiet because it still wasn't seen as 
legitimate," McElwain said. "But now, it's like, 'Yeah! I can talk 
about it now.' It's legitimate."

McElwain joined about 35 other DU law students in the inaugural 
class, Representing the Marijuana Client, the first of its kind 
designed to train would-be lawyers to work directly with the cannabis industry.

The law school is among about six nationally to offer a class 
specific to the weed, although the first to take it head-on. 
Marijuana has long been part of law school curriculum but is 
typically relegated to classes that deal with national drug policy 
and criminal law.

And most that are offering marijuana-specific classes this semester 
are still keeping it to legal theory and policy.

"Very few lawyers don't have questions about how marijuana law will 
impact their practice," said DU law professor Sam Kamin, who 
considered the class a necessity, especially in Colorado, where 
recreational production, sale and consumption of pot is legal.

Kamin's students - there's a long waiting list to get into the class 
- - aren't just those interested in weed.

"I have one who is interested in the tax-law implications and another 
who is to be a criminal defense attorney. There are many perspectives 
here," Kamin said. "To have a class about what the law is, the 
pitfalls of running that type of business and what it is for lawyers 
to have such a client are critical questions across the board."

It's not Oaksterdam University, the Oakland, Calif.-based site of 
America's "first cannabis college," as it promotes itself, which 
offered classes for careers in the medicinal cannabis industry, from 
horticulture to business management.

"Legalizing the conduct has made it a more complicated area of law," 
Kamin said. "From the conflicts of state and federal law, to 
securities law, to ethics, it's all in play."

And it's playing out across the country as more schools treat the 
matter with a greater air of legitimacy.

Before allowing weed-related classes to sit alone in curriculum 
catalogues, professors dipped their toes into marijuana issues 
tangential to the classroom.

"It had been the attention in the war on drugs and the classes on 
drug policy and criminal justice," said Douglas Berman, a professor 
at Ohio State University's Mortiz College of Law, who taught the 
nation's first marijuana-specific class in late 2013 and repeats it 
this semester.

Marijuana is illegal in Ohio.

"The dramatic turning point was the 2012 election (in Colorado) with 
the approval of recreational sales. It immediately exacerbated the 
legal tensions that were always there," he said.

His class, Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform, tracks national 
developments about business, banking and taxation, all of which "are 
changing as we speak," Berman said.

At prestigious Harvard University Law School, a ground-breaking 
seminar, "Tax Planning for Marijuana Dealers," was held in spring 
2014, hosted by Benjamin Moses Leff, an associate professor at 
American University Washington College of Law.

In it, Leff dealt with the incongruity of federal laws that prevent 
marijuana businesses from deducting legitimate business expenses from 
their taxes, a problem he suggests could be averted by establishing a 
nonprofit enterprise.

That Harvard would take on the topic raised a few eyebrows.

"What makes this distinctive is it is going from something 
disreputable to something with a jokable rebel vanguard, with 
lectures from characters such as Cheech and Chong," Berman said. 
"It's still significantly prohibited and socially stigmatized. But 
this is the transition period, and it's moving very quickly."

It was the Harvard seminar that New York City attorney Marc Ross said 
offered the legitimacy he sought to convince the dean at Hofstra 
University's Maurice A. Deane School of Law that such a class 
specific to marijuana could succeed.

"They were reluctant at first then cautiously optimistic," Ross said. 
"This is the next wave. And good or ugly, it is here, and law schools 
have to pay attention to it."

With medical marijuana about to be approved by voters in New York 
last summer, a client last summer asked Ross to venture to Colorado 
to look into a marijuana business, "a due-diligence trip," he called it.

"I wasn't at all interested. But when I got there, I was sold," Ross 
said of his trip to Denver. "I was just blown away with how 
mainstream and professional it all was."

A conversation with the dean made it clear a class could work.

"The clashes between marijuana and law make it a classic training 
ground for young lawyers," Ross said. "Things that look so simple are 
not, with so many implications many haven't thought about."

Ross' class at the Hempstead, N.Y.,-based school, Business and Legal 
Issues Related to Marijuana, was limited to 25 students and filled 
immediately. There's a waiting list of 50 more.

By using a fictional business, Cannabis Inc., Ross hopes to explore 
the various issues at play, from regulatory and ethical to planning 
and enforcement.

"Right now it still has taint to it because it's a new industry," 
Ross said. "But this is a time that's ahead of the curve."

At Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville, Tenn., professor 
Robert Mikos said marijuana's growing legalization made it a natural 
fit for its own class. Previously marijuana-related material was in 
the school's class on drug law and policy, appropriate as marijuana 
remains illegal in Tennessee.

"I discovered over time that the rules governing marijuana had 
morphed into a separate and distinct body of law, and there are more 
disagreements and authority disputes," said Mikos, who directs the 
school's program in law and government.

In California, assistant professor David Ball is teaching a "mini 
think tank" at Santa Clara University School of Law, focusing on the 
impact recreational legalization could have on that state. Although 
only medical marijuana is legal in California, recreational sales 
could be on ballots by 2016.

To that end, Ball's class will offer its analysis to the American 
Civil Liberties Union, which is running a panel studying the 
ramifications of legalized marijuana.

The panel is led by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

"Every five years there is something hot that has the range of 
controversy and reticence to make interesting and important," Berman 
said. "Casino gambling, same-sex marriage and the intellectual 
property of the Internet all rose to that very same level."

Although the first legal medical marijuana sales were approved in 
1996 in California, pot remained in the shadows of classroom 
discussion. That's changed.

"The moves by voters in Colorado and Washington to legalize 
recreational sales put the debates on warp speed," Berman said.

For McElwain, the DU student, marijuana law carries a double-edged 
meaning: Her mother was a cancer victim, and her boyfriend works in 
the industry's infused-products sector.

"It's history in the making and changes by the moment," she said. 
"It's a chance as a lawyer to get in from the beginning. It's exciting."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom