The past, present, and future of cannabis with Christian Sederberg As cannabis legalization spreads rapidly across the U.S. and the Senate prepares to introduce a federal bill that would end prohibition, the law firm that spearheaded Colorado's groundbreaking legalization initiative continues to grow and help cannabis businesses nationwide. Christian Sederberg, Founding Partner of Denver-based law firm Vicente Sederberg and its policy affiliate, VS Strategies, has been involved from the start, and his work as Chair Emeritus of the U.S. Cannabis Council was instrumental in the Senate's coming legislation. Christian joins Vangst CEO Karson Humiston to tell the story of legal cannabis — from the early medical days in Colorado to the progress being made today in Washington, D.C. — and give an inside look at being an entrepreneur and leader of a fast-growing, highly influential firm focused on drug policy reform. Produced by PodConx Proud To Work In Cannabis - https://podconx.com/podcasts/proud-to-work-in-cannabis Karson Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston Vangst - https://vangst.com/ Christian Sederberg - https://podconx.com/guests/christian-sederberg Vicente Sederberg — https://vicentesederberg.com/ VS Strategies — https://www.vsstrategies.com/
The past, present, and future of cannabis with Christian Sederberg
As cannabis legalization spreads rapidly across the U.S. and the Senate prepares to introduce a federal bill that would end prohibition, the law firm that spearheaded Colorado's groundbreaking legalization initiative continues to grow and help cannabis businesses nationwide. Christian Sederberg, Founding Partner of Denver-based law firm Vicente Sederberg and its policy affiliate, VS Strategies, has been involved from the start, and his work as Chair Emeritus of the U.S. Cannabis Council was instrumental in the Senate's coming legislation. Christian joins Vangst CEO Karson Humiston to tell the story of legal cannabis — from the early medical days in Colorado to the progress being made today in Washington, D.C. — and give an inside look at being an entrepreneur and leader of a fast-growing, highly influential firm focused on drug policy reform.
Proud To Work In Cannabis - https://podconx.com/podcasts/proud-to-work-in-cannabis
Karson Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston
Vangst - https://vangst.com/
Christian Sederberg - https://podconx.com/guests/christian-sederberg
Vicente Sederberg — https://vicentesederberg.com/
VS Strategies — https://www.vsstrategies.com/
Guest: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. This is Christian Cedarburg and I am proud to work in cannabis because not only are we creating a new industry, but we're also dealing with and addressing fundamental issues about society and justice.
Karson Humiston: Hey everybody. And welcome to the proud to work in cannabis podcast. I'm your host, Carson Hoon. And today we're so excited to have. Christian Cedarburg founding partner of Viente Cedarburg the leading cannabis law firm. We're gonna hear all about it. We're gonna get an update on policy and I've been so excited for this show.
So Christian, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
Guest: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Karson Humiston: So Christian, let's jump right in here. Tell us a little bit about your background and what, inspired you to start? Probably the first cannabis law.
Guest: oh, wow. It's been a, it's been an interesting 12 years or so. So, my business partner, Brian Ente, and I met in the summer of 2008 during the democratic [00:01:00] national convention where Brian was working on the people's law project, where they were defending him and a bunch of attorneys along the sou were defending people's right to participate In the democratic process through protests and through activism I met Brian through that and also through a ski condo that we had in Colorado and always thought what he was doing was very interesting. So fast forward to 2009, when Brian approached me and said, Hey, look, we're looking at a situation where the state is gonna regulate medical marijuana through a statutory.
Process and regulatory process. And, Brian said you're one of , the very few corporate and transactional attorneys that I've ever really gotten to know. So curious if you and your firm, or you would like to help with that. If, if we can get this done they, they did get it done.
And through, through the work of Brian, Josh capital, Sal pace, other folks at the capital back in the 2010 Colorado legislature, we created the first statewide , robustly regulated medical cannabis industry. That's when we started the firm back in may of [00:02:00] 2010.
So, the rest is sort of history, but since then, there's been a lot going on. We were tapped by some of the national groups to work on the legalization initiative, which is now known as amendment 64. So we wrote that initiative and ran that out of our conference room back in the 2011, 2012 timeframe.
After that passed, obviously. That changed a lot and we've been rapidly growing ever since. And thanks for, looks like you, Carson and others helping to, keep creating jobs and tax revenues and, and pushing this forward. And hopefully sometimes soon we'll have some clarity at the federal level, too.
Karson Humiston: Christian I have to ask. So it's 2009 and you decide , to go for it. What do your family and friends say in 2009 when medical cannabis is being legalized in Colorado and you say that you're gonna be one of the first attorneys to work in this space. What did everybody say to.
Guest: Yeah, it was interesting. I mean, it ranged, so, you know, as far as my professional colleagues, some were saying, wow, that's a really cool idea. It's a huge risk. I don't know [00:03:00] if I'd do it. Others were saying it's a huge risk. You're throwing your career. Others were saying, wow, what a cool opportunity. I wish I was in a position to go for it too.
And however I can support you so full range, but all in all, I mean, my, my professional colleagues were very supportive. There were some that were obviously very skeptical. But you know, the skeptics have been proven wrong. As far as my family goes, my family was very supportive. I've just got a really awesome.
Awesome parents and family members and second to six kids. So, I kind of shared with my my parents and,, they were super excited to talk about it. My, it's funny, my mom, who's very conservative, came from the Midwest and, cannabis has never been something she's ever used and.
She, she kind of told me, well, it's, it's medical and there's, you guys are focusing on medical and there's all these things happening. And I was kind of like, well, it's a medical focus, but that, that could change very quickly in 2012, because that was really a part of the plan all along following the work of Steve Fox and Mason divert that we're doing the public education campaign with 2012 cited as the, the year to go for it.
So, but even then my mom said, look, we'll we support you.[00:04:00] You know, It was really, really great of them to support me and really awesome of my professional colleagues, including the Ron snow, who was the attorney I was working for at the time, really being supportive of either the firm I was working for at the time or myself separately, really diving into this and, and taking an taking a chance.
So.
Karson Humiston: And 12 years later, of course, now everybody looks back. I don't know the saying that I'm looking for, but everybody looks back and says, oh yeah, of course this was a no brainer. Of course you were gonna be successful. Cannabis was bound to take off. I always laugh because you started in 2012, we didn't start until 2016.
But even at that time, people were saying, , this is crazy. What are, what are you talking about? You're
gonna get people jobs in cannabis.
Guest: Yeah, , even under , Obama, even during his 2008 campaign had made it clear that he wasn't interested in prosecuting medical patients, their providers, but there was still a very big question, mark.
And there was still at the time, the ethics rules in Colorado, which have since been changed, really did not allow for much space to ethically even practice in the area. Something that we worked on a bunch too. So I don't begrudge people, [00:05:00] especially attorneys. They're supposed to be somewhat risk averse, them taking a more conservative approach, but certainly at the time, the opportunity and just knowing as long as I've known and always been very fascinated with and disappointed by, and the, the war on drugs and.
Particularly the war on cannabis and how bad of a policy that's been and how negatively it's affected so many people, the opportunity to work on it with someone like Brian Ente, who is at really the height of the advocacy game and, and Mason divert and Steve Fox, Josh cap, all those guys that were really had been working on those for years, the height of the advocacy game for me to be able to, to step in it was a, very, very honored to do so, and definitely standing on the shoulders of those giants and others.
Karson Humiston: And Christian, can you tell us about some of your first clients and some of the, the work that would come up, like, Mo most people listening. If they're a business owner, they know the regular, day to day legal challenges that you face as a business owner, but back in the early days, I'm talking. 2009 through 2012. Who were your clients and what kind of [00:06:00] legal work were you working on for them?
Guest: Sure. So, I mean, a lot of the clients were people contacts that Brian had Ente had through his advocacy work at sensible Colorado, or through kind of his solo shop that he was running, just trying to help caregivers and their patients, with legal protections and making sure they were documenting things correctly.
Cuz . Before the state law passed creating a regulated medical cannabis space, , we still have a state constitutional amendment that, that really governed this. So a lot of those clients and other people at the very beginning were people that were, contacts of Brian's or.
Really just cannabis people that were operating mostly in Denver, Boulder, and a few other places, cuz the way the new law was passed in, in, in 2010, what the law said was, it's gonna be a state and local licensing regime. The state created this licensing system and they said by, August 1st, everyone who's gonna want to get a license is gonna have to apply for a license with the state.
And before then at the local level, they're gonna have to have at least a local [00:07:00] application for the type of business they wanna run, be it cultivation products, or a retail, a medical cannabis store. They had to have a, a local application in, or a local license. Now the clients that came in, a lot of them were operating without their, there was some local licensing.
But Denver, for example, where a lot of this was going on, Denver had no. Cultivation licensing, no infused products licensing. They just had kind of these retail store and the way you got a store license was you went through some hoops. But really at that time, like that transition was incredibly difficult because most cities did not have any application process or licensing process.
So a lot of our clients, the work we were doing, it was people that were operating as caregivers that had gotten together. That either wanted to start a business. So they were scrambling for real estate scrambling to find a place to locate a store, to locate a grow. And then also it was, really helping to work, almost treating the Denver city council and others, local governments as the client to kind of say, look, these people are.
Operating, we need to find a way [00:08:00] to get them so that they can then apply for the state license. You don't wanna shut these businesses down. So we were doing a lot of legislative work at the local level and Denver, one example of all this too is, and the kind of work that we're doing, that people we're representing, they were.
Lighting systems at the time, very few of them had, if any, had, a certification from underwriting from UL, a UL certification saying this is a safe, safe for commercial use. So, working with the city of Denver, cuz we, we had to get building permits and start going through the process of building these grows out.
They had no regulators that knew anything about this. The state was just building their regulatory system and also the equipment that is required for you to have a safe and licensed, a. To close out your permits for local cultivation and, and operation to get your certificate of occupancy. You needed to use UL certified lighting technology.
I mean, these are, I'm kind of bouncing around a little bit, but there was just crazy complexities around just getting people from operating without any state or local licensing to getting local and state licenses [00:09:00] all done within about a two and a half, three month.
Karson Humiston: and speaking of licensing over the course of the last right decade that you've been growing your business, which I wanna talk about your journey as a. Entrepreneur in a little bit too, because it's cool because you're a lawyer, but you're also an entrepreneur growing your own practice, but sticking on the licensing.
Can you talk to the audience about how that part of your business has evolved? Because I would imagine now you're helping people get licenses all across the country and you're one of the, the, the top people to go to, if someone's trying to win a.
Guest: Yeah, thanks now. We've we've built a very robust licensing practice nationwide that Brian Viente runs and also Jericho Perez. One of our newest partners, the two of them really lead the charge there with an amazing staff. And that started with New York and Florida.
At the beginning when there was some of these very, very robust application processes and limited numbers of licenses being selected. We were successful in Minnesota, in New York, in Florida, in those first [00:10:00] rounds. And Brian really built a, a robust practice around that. And we still are operating, getting licenses for people in these sort of, we call them competitive application or merit application states.
Karson Humiston: sorry to cut in just for, for people listening that don't know , this isn't like. You're going to the DMV to apply for a license to get like a car or something. Can you, can you give the audience just like a sense of how complex these licenses
Guest: Yeah. I mean, some of these are thousands of pages, longs, everything from very detailed plans around all of your operations SOPs. Staffing plans more and more, and it's good to see in including plans around how you're going to execute on social justice, criminal justice, diversity, equity, inclusion type issues.
These are incredibly, massive applications that take hundreds, if not thousands of hours and teams to, to. Complete. This includes putting together your executive teams, Carson, obviously you guys know a lot about that. I'm sure you've seen this, and, and help people [00:11:00] do this, but you know, it's really connecting all the dots and putting in front of a state and locality, typically a, an application package that says, this is why we should be the ones.
That get one of these 1520 licenses or whatever it is, going forward or even in states where it's just a very robust practice without so many limitations for, Massachusetts, for example, where we do a lot of work, started out as a limited applications. Now it's really driven by local governments, California, Colorado, other places are the same way.
So that's really become a very big part of our practice. And Brian Viente has, has really taken the reins there and doesn't does a really amazing. You.
Karson Humiston: Yeah. And, I just have to imagine that as more and more states continue to legalize . It's harder to stand out, right? Like if you're a business owner, you really have to put effort into why is our team, the team to that should be one of the winners in New York as an example.
And I think your firm does a great job in helping people stand out. [00:12:00] So if you are listening and you're looking to. Win a license. Look no further, but anyway, a little bit back to you. So , you start the practice. Of course you start getting more clients. Now we're talking about today.
You're helping people all across the entire country. What's it been like balancing being an attorney with also being an entrepreneur, hiring partners onto your firm, focusing on partnerships, marketing expansion, talk just about the journey as a, a lawyer and an entrepreneur.
Guest: Yeah, no, it's thanks for asking the question. It's hard to. Build and grow a, a business in a very complicated and shifting regulatory environment. The benefit obviously is that there's a lot of people, very excited about the opportunities and potential opportunities to practice a new area of law here, or to get involved at the front end.
There's three of us and growing it to about 90 or so where we're at now. You hit these levels. That I think every entrepreneur hits in a fast growing environment where all of a sudden, you can't have your hands on everything. You gotta let things go.
You gotta start to think. What is the best way for for growth to [00:13:00] happen? You gotta bring professionals in that, that know these things, be it marketing professionals, HR professionals, operations professionals just like any company. And, honestly lawyers are historically not the best business people.
It's kind of a joke in the lawyer industry. That that oftentimes, your success, you just become more successful and really taking that focus and putting it. Efficient operations and looking at, how companies are typically run lawyer law firms and lawyers are typically very inefficient.
So, it's been a, been a very interesting journey and I've got, a background in finance and corporate finance. That's what I majored in, but also it's what I did for a couple years before law school. And then at my first job as a lawyer, I was really focusing on complex real estate complex.
Private equity kind of partnerships. And so, I've got a pretty good business sense around me. Business sense from my experience, but also it's, it's a real challenge. And, and certainly we, we go through the same challenge as many people do. We've been kicked out of our bank. We, we've got very solid banking relationships.
We've been transparent since day one about what we do, how we're doing it, but we've lost over the 12 years, [00:14:00] five, six banking relationships. We have challenges getting lines of credit, but a lot of the same challenges that a lot of the, the cannabis industry goes through. So it's been it's been an adventure and we're still trying to to get better every day.
But yeah, it's been real challenging, but also very fulfilling in many ways.
Karson Humiston: 90 full-time staff. That's incredible.
Guest: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And it's obviously COVID has been very tricky. The last couple years as everyone I'm sure knows, it's tricky maintaining culture. As is when you're, when you're growing company, very Fastly, but also just the disconnection from partners, from my own partners and from my staff and from, from everybody, it's certainly been the last couple years in particular have been incredibly challenging.
Karson Humiston: So when you're hiring for the 90 staff, what are you looking for in people that you are going to hire to join your team? Whether its. Lawyers or the other people that you use in, I would imagine marketing operations, finance, all the, the parts of the business. What are you generally looking for when [00:15:00] you're hiring?
Guest: Being entrepreneurial and having an understanding that , there's some level of risk taking here. Obviously it's a lot less that it was 10 years ago, but you know that this is a, a dynamic environment and constantly shifting, and so also looking for people like what is their passion?
Why, why join our team, our team, and. Our firm has been always focused on, we're, we're an advocacy. We first organization and we've been advocates, but also advocates, not just for reforming our drug laws and our cannabis laws specifically, but advocates, for creating a substitute system, that's much better, which is the regulated market.
So it's balancing that business and advocacy, but we always like to talk to people and ask them why, why cannabis? Why now? Why here? And so it doesn't mean you like, we've got plenty of people that don't, aren't regular cannabis consumers, or maybe don't consume cannabis at all. That's not a qualification or a requirement here, but having an understanding of why this, this area is compelling and what motivates you.
I think that's a recipe for not just success in hiring, but success for that person, and that in that position,[00:16:00]
Karson Humiston: yeah, we always say passion cells. And when we find people that are. Passionate about moving the industry forward. I think that's one of like the most unique parts about cannabis is that there's all these individual businesses with a common goal. And I think that's what makes the industry so unique that you may even have a competitor, but you want both businesses to.
Succeed, because if every business and cannabis is succeeding, that means that we're moving the industry forward, which speaking of moving the industry forward, there's no better person to ask around policy updates than you the question that I'm sure you get asked, like every single day, that's probably so annoying is when is cannabis gonna be regulated at the federal level, but can you give us a sense of what's going on?
And , in the legislative world,
Guest: Sure. And so here we are the week of the 18th of July. Last week we heard that Bloomberg and some others reported that The CAO, which is the everyone calls it, the Booker Schumer, whiten, comprehensive cannabis reform bill that we're hearing rumors. It could be introduced this week.
We've [00:17:00] been assured by Senate staffers that, it'll be before the August recess, which starts on August 8th. So the next couple weeks here, if not this week we're anticipating that bill to be introduced. Now the, that, that doesn't answer the question. When is cannabis gonna be regulated federally, but this is a huge, huge step along with the more act, which is pass the house on multiple occasions which is comprehensive reform, but hasn't really moved anywhere in the Senate.
Having this introduced in the Senate, which, we don't anticipate anything could happen. It advancing this, this Congress is just with how much time is left and all of the issues out there. It, it doesn't seem likely to advance this Congress, but what it does is it has just a major influence on future comprehensive reform proposals, particularly on the democratic side, you also have, representative mace , who's a Republican from South Carolina who introduced her package.
Which is, kind of the Republican response to this. And so I think what we're seeing is, you start to get these legislative proposals out there, even if they're not gonna pass this session, these are incredibly historic [00:18:00] moments. And I think it bodes well for something to change in the near future, alongside that.
We have some interesting stuff happening , in the hemp world, right. Where there's been some interesting lawsuits and, and other things where, there's some talk of. Hemp, hemp derived cannabinoids, including Delta nine, THC, not just Delta eight and Delta 10, but even Delta nine, the traditional, what we all know to be in all of that the regulated products sold in all these states, there's, those products are being sold online.
Some believe. Although, I'm not one of them that this is fully legal and that, that the farm bill that legalized ham in 2018 created this, this interesting problem through in artful drafting. Now, again, I look at that as a challenge for the cannabis industry generally, because it means, there's a lot of products being sold online, less than regulated, but also.
It's an opportunity as we look at the next iteration, what we really need in Congress is some level of urgency. And I think that there's some urgency being created through, these types of [00:19:00] business activities where, the cannabis industry is expanding to state, state by state. And then you have the hemp industry and some of the hemp industry selling.
What are, what are basically mirrored to the products that are sold in our regulated stores here in Colorado, five and 10 milligram per serving a hundred milligram plus per package of Delta nine, THC, that I can get online or that I can go down the street to a regulated store, but if you're in Texas or other states, that's, that's out there.
So I think there is urgency being created by all these things, all of which I see as an opportunity, but this Congress. , I think it's a long, a very long shot. We're hoping that, in this Congress, we're gonna see some reforms around banking and some, maybe some research, some smaller things.
As we move to the end of this Congress, hopefully we can get ed promos banking legislation done at some point here, but I think we're looking at smaller reforms, hopefully this Congress with the path towards larger reforms being partly dependent on who controls the house and the Senate.
And to at the end
of these elections, starting in
23,
but I do think there is a [00:20:00] a, a very large and bipartisan
amount of support at this point for comprehensive reform.
It's just a matter of
politics.
Karson Humiston: And, and if, if you're just a random person. You know, not working at a law firm or isn't super, super heavily involved in cannabis reform, but you want to get involved. We constantly have people asking us, I work in the industry, I'm a bud tenderer, but I'd like to help move the industry.
For what advice do you give to those people? What do they do?
Guest: Yeah, there's a, there's an organization called headcount. Which has a specific, very well known organization. It's a get out the vote voting registration and, voter information, nonprofit. There is a part of that called the cannabis voter project of which I'm a part of their advisory board as are a number of other leaders in the industry.
It's www dot cannabis, voter.info. Some people might recognize that if you're tangentially involved, but Seth Rogan, Sarah Silverman did some spots around [00:21:00] reform a few months ago. That was the cannabis voter project and headcounts work. So that's, that's one of the easiest ways I think, to just kind of get involved because you, you go sign up for their email list or sign up.
Tax notifications. It reminds me to register, make sure I'm registered. It, it kind of gives targeted insights. Hey, you're just so you know, they're, they're nonpartisan, so they're not taking positions on candidates or even issues, but they are saying, it's awareness. Are you aware that there is this piece of legislation in Congress or this piece of legislation at your state at, in your state or X, Y, Z events are coming up.
So I really push people to cannabis voter. Dot info. But also, again, it's, marijuana moment is a, is a
wonderful website for people to
kind of stay, stay in touch. And they've got a lot of good
advocacy tools. So,
yeah, marijuana policy project. I don't wanna leave anyone
out here cuz we got some really good
partners in advocacy.
And, and we need to keep, keep pushing. Oh
Karson Humiston: And that those are, those are great tips. , I actually took some notes and I'm gonna check, I hadn't heard of a couple of those, so I'm gonna check them out. My last question. for you is if you could wave [00:22:00] a wand and have one.
thing in the cannabis industry happen today, , what would you wish for?
Guest: man. I mean, , I wish that if I could have my way, we'd have more time to have a really robust debate around the, the CA and also around other proposals.
Now, again, I don't think that the only way to win and the way to win and actually win is to have to win hearts and minds. And that takes a process and that takes, advocacy. So. I, I wouldn't wanna force
my will upon
anyone. I'm not trying to cop out here on this question, but I really wish we had more time.
And I, and I really, frankly, if I could wave a wand, I would make it that it was president. Biden's a very high priority because if he made it a
high priority, it is my opinion that we could actually get something done in the next
couple years.
Karson Humiston: really like that one. I, I ask this question all the time and yeah. Having the, the, president have this as a priority, would drum up the attention and support to really get the conversation going
Guest: Yeah,
Karson Humiston: well, look, [00:23:00] Christian, thank you so much for joining us today.
At when we release This we're gonna have links to.
Your website and your profile and all of your open jobs. So if, as, uh, Viente, Cedarburg continues to grow, if people listening are interested in joining Christian and his awesome team, I'm sure they would love to get in touch with you. So, Christian, Thank you so much for being here with us today.
This was, this episode went by so quickly. I can't believe it's already been 25 minutes. Uh, thanks again for being here.
Guest: Thanks. And thanks for everything you guys are doing Carson and I
always amazing to watch you doing what you're doing and how much you've grown your company. And I'm so happy for your success. And I really appreciate everything you guys do. So thank you so
much.
Karson Humiston: Thank you for saying that have a great day and everybody will have you back here next week for another. We have another exciting guest coming on the show next week. So thanks again for tuning in. And I hope everybody has a great day.