Welcome back to Higher Law, our weekly briefing on all things cannabis. I'm Cheryl Miller, reporting for Law.com from Sacramento. Happy 2020!

This week we're looking at: • Your predictions for the new year • The hiring wave of general counsel in 2019 • The launch of recreational sales in Illinois

Thanks for jumping into the third year of Higher Law with us. I count on your feedback, tips, story ideas and colorful anecdotes to keep this going. So please, keep them all coming at [email protected]. Or call me at 916.448.2935. Follow me on Twitter @capitalaccounts.

Happy New Year! Now What? Your Predictions.

Last year, many big firms rushed to announce new cannabis practices—or to raise the shroud on existing ones. Congress played footsie with help for state-legal marijuana operations. Hemp was federally legal but still legally vexing to some states.

What will happen in 2020? A few brave and hopefully prescient attorneys stepped forward to offer some predictions. Here's a quick take on some of things you told me, in your own words, or were otherwise published in recent days:

➤➤ Katy Young, managing partner of Ad Astra and president of the International Cannabis Bar Association: The extinction events will continue as the weakest companies succumb to the pressures of overregulation; Product liability lawsuits, likely surrounding the vaping crisis, will ramp up; The effects of local control allowing prohibition of commercial cannabis activity in particular jurisdictions will continue to fuel the illicit market, and therefore create other problems like this vaping crisis; More attorneys will seek to represent cannabis businesses, including more and more big firms.

 ➤➤ Mikaela Whitman (at left) and Peter Halprin, partners at Pasich LLP: As cannabis becomes legalized in more states, insurers are drafting cannabis-specific policies and products that will likely lead to coverage issues and disputes.

Financial institutions, suppliers, producers and sellers will seek insurance coverage under general CGL and property policies. This will test the insurance available for a product that is still federally illegal.

➤➤ Seth Goldberg, head of the cannabis group at Duane Morris, via The Philadelphia Inquirer: The hemp space seems situated to expand as the regulations become more clear, and the federal banking regulators have recently announced that hemp can be banked like any other legal product.

A lot is contingent on the federal government. If the STATES Rights Act or SAFE Banking Act were to pass, the latter of which seems to have the best chance in 2020, there will be a boost. Conversely, tightening of enforcement by the federal government could have the opposite effect. FDA regulations around vaping and CBD as a drug, dietary supplement, food/beverage may also be issued in 2020, which would shape the market for those products.

➤➤ Amy Steinfeld, co-chair of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck's cannabis and industrial hemp industry group: Additional enforcement by state agencies as they move past regulation to compliance; California's over-regulation and over-taxation will continue to squeeze the industry; NIMBYism will continue to plague cannabis cultivators; Additional states, and counties and cities will open their doors to commercial cannabis operations.

➤➤ Frank Segall, Burns & Levinson partner and co-chair of the cannabis business & law advisory group: Everything is held up with what's going on over impeachment. That's taken the focus off what should be nonpartisan but are now partisan bills because of that.

So I would hope—I can't make a prediction in this industry, other than it will remain complicated—but I hope the SAFE Banking Act will get adopted. And I think there's a strong likelihood that could happen.

➤➤ Hagens Berman partner Reed Kathrein: I think we're going to see more (securities) actions but like any new industry where everybody jumps in there's going to be shakeouts, regardless of fraud. And you'll probably eventually end up with a few big players.

But right now the barrier to entry is fairly low, as long as you meet licensing requirements. So everyone's jumping into it.

➤➤ Rod Kight of the Kight Law Office from his Kight on Cannabis blog: 1. CBD will go mainstream; 2) Track and trace and GMP Will finally become the norm; 3) We will see the emergence and availability of other cannabinoids on the market; 4) An international cannabis market will finally emerge; 5) We will see the first wave of cannabis insolvencies and bankruptcies.

Who Got the Work

• Many cannabis companies hired their first general counsel in 2019 as the industry continued to blossom, my colleague Kibkabe Araya, writes for Law.com. Among those joining the GC ranks last year were Stacey Hallerman at Lowell Herb Co. and Gabriel García at Natura Life + Science.

• Feuerstein Kulick partner Samantha Gleit represented a syndicate of lenders in a deal that will provide Curaleaf Holdings with a four-year, $275 million secured term loan facility. The loan, with a 13 percent annual interest rate, will allow Curaleaf to pay down existing debt and to continue with planned acquisitions of cannabis brand Select and dispensary company Grassroots, The Motley Fool reported.

• Oklahoma medical marijuana dispensary chain The Peak Dispensary has named general counsel Blake Cantrell as chief executive officer. Before joining The Peak Dispensary, Cantrell was the market owner of OrderUp, a mobile food-ordering and delivery company.

In the Weeds…

>> Illinois recreational sales start with long lines and a few glitches. One of the first purchasers on Wednesday was Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton. (She bought gummies at a Sunnyside dispensary.) Forty-three dispensaries around the state have received all required approvals but six of them weren't ready to open on Jan. 1. Some dispensaries reported troubles with the state's tracking database. [Chicago Tribune] Legal cannabis sales reached $3.2 million on the first day, Bloomberg News reports.

>> Meet the Canadian banker helping U.S. cannabis companies. "Graham Saunders is a man in high demand. When U.S. cannabis companies need financing they can't find elsewhere, they turn to this Toronto banker who operates far from Wall Street." Saunders and his team at Canaccord Genuity Group. Inc. have helped finance more than half of all marijuana deals in the global equity markets. [WSJ]

>> They're good to grow but not to go beyond their states' borders. The United States may have the best marijuana growers in the world but federal illegality has given Canada a major edge in exporting and financing. [Washington Post]

>> A Maryland lawmaker is accused of taking bribes to help marijuana companies. Cheryl Glenn, who abruptly resigned her House of Delegates seat in December, is facing federal charges alleging that she accepted $34,000 to, among other things, push legislation to expand licensing for out-of-state marijuana companies. Glenn's attorney, William Bennett, declined to comment to The Washington Post. [Washington Post]

>> Interstate tension in the Midwest over legal marijuana sales? "Retailers legally selling marijuana for the past month in Michigan say they have drawn customers from surrounding Midwestern states where the drug remains illegal and, as Illinois … join [ed] the recreational market on Wednesday, officials are renewing warnings to consumers against carrying such products over state lines." [Associated Press]

The Calendar Things

Jan. 8 - Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck hosts a quarterly cannabis workshop and networking event in Santa Barbara. Melissa Kuipers Blake, co-chair of the firm's cannabis and industrial hemp industry group, is one of the scheduled speakers.

Jan. 9-11 - Lift & Co hosts a business conference and expo in Vancouver, B.C. Scheduled speakers include Sony Gokhale, general counsel of The Supreme Cannabis Co. Inc., and Sherri Altshuler, partner at Aird & Berlis.