Brian Vicente, Founding Partner of Vicente LLP – Interview Series

Since 2010, attorney Brian Vicente has been a founding partner of Vicente LLP, the law firm that has been given the distinct nickname of “the country’s first powerhouse marijuana law firm.” Along with this major accomplishment for cannabis law and policy, Vicente has also utilized his expertise in incredibly influential and important ways, such as being a co-director for the Amendment 64 campaign which recreationally legalized cannabis statewide in Colorado.

What initially interested you about studying law and becoming a lawyer and why did you choose the Sturm School of Law?

I wanted to become a lawyer so I could create social change, and the more I thought about it as a young adult, the more I learned that law would allow people to impact policy instead of just services that help individuals. It was more interesting to me to create broader change. I chose the Sturm College of Law because they gave me a full ride and placed me in a public interest cohort. It was really interesting to me to be working with peers who cared about creating policy change as well.

What was your first experience with cannabis law and what were the cornerstone moments that made you decide to practice cannabis law?

When I graduated in 2004 from law school, there was no field called cannabis law. It really was just criminal defense around cannabis. So, I began to work immediately for a nonprofit called Marijuana Policy Project, working to change cannabis laws. During that time, I represented medical marijuana patients pro bono and took their cases to court. I got a lot of press on it because I was the only person doing that sort of work at the time, and one of the cornerstone moments for me was the discovery that our current medical marijuana law knowledge in the mid-2000s was really undeveloped. When I went to court to defend a medical marijuana patient, I would know more about that section of the state constitution than anyone in the courthouse – even the judge. This allowed me to basically run over prosecutors and other people because, even though they knew a lot more about general law and procedure than I did, I knew a lot about this piece. We were also able to get good results for clients and publicize those results as well as show the world that these patients exist, they find this medicine useful, and they’re being prosecuted. I think that led to people saying, “Why are we prosecuting these patients? We should regulate this product!”

How were you influential in the creation of Amendment 64, the bill that made cannabis history and legalized recreational cannabis in Colorado? How was the experience of being the co-director for the “Yes on 64” campaign?

In terms of the Amendment 64 campaign, I was the Co-director and I was also one of the primary authors of that constitutional amendment which made Colorado the first place in the history of the world to legalize cannabis. That campaign was really the result of eight years of work by myself and one or two other individuals in Colorado focused on passing local laws around cannabis, doing impact legal cases around cannabis, and broadening patient rights while also running media campaigns to alert the public to the fact that prohibition was a failure. That softened up the public opinion to the point where when we presented them with a statewide measure to legalize cannabis, that eight years of work contributed to voters feeling more comfortable with passing.

Why did you start Vicente LLP and how did the firm eventually receive the title of “the country’s first powerhouse marijuana law firm”?

I started doing private work as Vicente Consulting in the mid- to late- 2000s because I was on TV and in the papers all the time doing pro bono work on behalf of medical marijuana patients. Eventually, people just started calling me and saying, “Hey, I would like to pay you to help me try to launch a cannabis business,” which I was a specialist in at the time when there were no formal cannabis businesses. It took a lot of creative lawyering, and throughout that time, I was connecting with some other colleagues who cared about this work. We formed a law firm to service the individuals interested in the business side of this. I think because we were the earliest folks to do this work and we were very overt in flying our flag – this is what we did, it wasn’t a practice that our firm hid behind, it was our sole practice. Then we began to get recognized, including by Rolling Stone, who dubbed us “the country’s first powerhouse marijuana law firm.”

While respecting attorney-client privilege of course, I wanted to ask what have been the most common reasons or disputes that cannabis business owners/operators hire the legal services of Vicente LLP over?

Clients hire us for all sorts of business needs related to their cannabis and/or psychedelic businesses. Sometimes that can be assisting them in start-up operations or doing corporate work. Sometimes it’s land use or regulatory. Frequently, my practice involves helping people get licenses to launch their cannabis businesses now that recreational and medical cannabis are established industries. Overall, our firm today has a deep bench with a wide breadth of services, including litigation. Vicente LLP just recently secured a historic legal settlement allowing the first-ever maritime transport of marijuana within Massachusetts state waters. This win enabled island-based dispensaries on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket to access wholesale cannabis, saving the islands’ cannabis industries from potentially ceasing altogether.

Because recreational cannabis has been legal in Colorado for a decade now and has spread to nearly half of US states, how have you seen the subject and practice of cannabis law as a whole change over this last decade?

There’s been a large-scale legitimization of cannabis as a practice area of law over the last decade. Prior to that, it was really criminal defense work and some civil litigation on behalf of patients. But now that we have 24 states with legal adult-use cannabis and about 40 states with medical marijuana, there are a lot of state laws to navigate to help people get businesses off the ground.

Because Vicente LLP operates in multiple states across America, what are some of the most glaring examples of how cannabis laws specifically in legally operating states can still change or differ wildly from state to state?

One of the joys of practicing in cannabis law is that there are many, many differences between state laws. We don’t have an overarching federal law that tells us what to do. Instead, each state can carve out what they think is best for their citizens. This is intellectually very interesting because we get to learn the intricacies of cannabis laws in Minnesota, which are very different than Michigan, which are very different than those of Texas. One example of that would be in Michigan, for instance. Businesses in any state typically have to show some degree of capital when starting a business and getting a new license awarded to them. In Michigan, they could literally show pictures of their cannabis pounds as proof that they had capital, which was mind blowing to me. Another sort of fascinating court was Washington DC. Tired of Congress preventing the program for medical patients from moving forward – and adult use as well, which is past the local level – they allow patients to self-certify. So, instead of going to a doctor, in D.C. you can just say “I declare myself fit for medical marijuana,” which I found totally fascinating. One final one that is really interesting is the hemp loophole at the federal level in the federal Farm Bill, which has allowed many states, including places like Minnesota, to have really thriving hemp-derived THC markets, which are largely the same products that are being sold in Colorado or California, but they’re just simply being processed differently.

I noticed that you’ve also advocated for and advised government officials on an international level as well. What other countries have you advocated for cannabis reform in? And what countries do you predict will be next to legalize cannabis on the national level, on par with Canada and Germany most recently?

One of the wild things about being among the first folks to legalize cannabis is that our phones started ringing quite a bit from elected officials and government officials in other States and other countries wanting to learn about the model that we had developed for Colorado’s regulated cannabis. I had the pleasure of speaking to dozens of countries about cannabis reform and what it looks like to regulate cannabis. We did some formal representation in Canada in terms of helping them develop their abilities programs as well as in Uruguay, which is the first country to legalize the use of cannabis. In terms of who’s next, I think we’re going to see some other countries in Western Europe move forward pretty quickly as well as some of the Caribbean island nations.

Apart from your work with Vicente LLP, you’re also on the Board of Directors for several organizations. What roles do you serve with those organizations and why is the work of those organizations important?

I think participating in nonprofit work is important. It’s how I started my career, and I continue to serve on and work with a couple of different nonprofits. One of those organizations that is worth spotlighting is the National and Hispanic Cannabis Council, which is a training association that advocates for economic empowerment for Hispanics as we move from prohibition to regulation and make sure that black and brown people are represented in the economic opportunities in this field. I’m one of the founders and remain the Board Chair of that organization. The other organization that I play a big role in is the Marijuana Policy Project, which has been around for decades. I’ve had a relationship with them for 30 years. I’m currently the Treasurer of their Board, and in that way, I help them focus on fundraising to continue to do the amazing legalization work they do out there.

Whenever federal rescheduling happens, assuming the rescheduling is from Schedule I to Schedule III, how do you see that major transition impacting the operations of both Vicente LLP and the practice of cannabis law? I would imagine freedom from Tax Code 280E’s costly provisions alone would be tremendous.

We are at a historic moment in cannabis reform where the federal government has initiated a process to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, and in doing so has recognized the medical value of cannabis – which, of course, millions of Americans have known about for decades. It’s a landmark to have the federal government themselves finally recognize this that after years of denying it. I do predict that that will pass and have an enormous impact on cannabis businesses that will no longer be subjected to 280E and become much more profitable pretty quickly. It also will send a message to those who are considering broader investment at the state level that cannabis is even moving in the direction of being decriminalized at the federal level. I think it will also send a message to banks and investors that this is a legitimate industry that is on path of being recognized by the federal government.

Thank you for joining us Brian! You can find out more about Vicente LLP at https://vicentellp.com/