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The general counsel to the Canadian cannabis company Sunniva Inc. will be leaving at the beginning of August.

Benjamin Rootman became the company's first general counsel in 2017. He said in an interview Tuesday that over the last year the company has been in the process of moving to California and selling off its Canadian assets. As a Canadian citizen, he said U.S. immigration laws would not allow him to work for a cannabis company.

"I would love to be able to move down there, but that would not work with immigration," Rootman said.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's website, Canadian citizens coming to the U.S. may be denied entry if they are found to be coming for reasons related to the marijuana industry because it is federally illegal in the United States.

Rootman said there is one senior attorney in California at Sunniva, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is not clear if that attorney will be taking on the role of general counsel in Rootman's absence. The second attorney in the legal department did not want to be identified in this article.

Rootman and the other attorney are the only two in the legal department at Sunniva.

In the press release, CEO Dr. Anthony Holler said Rootman has made significant contributions to the company in his two years with Sunniva.

"With the shift of operations and ongoing business development to California, Ben has decided to further his career in a Canadian-based company," Holler said. "We appreciate all the hard work and diligence that Ben gave to the company over the past two years and we wish him all the best in his new position."

Rootman said he has taken a position as the general counsel and chief risk officer at a private Canadian bank. He said he did not have the bank's permission to name it and declined to do so.

Sunniva was a private company when Rootman started and became public in 2018. Some of the bigger challenges, he said, included putting in the legal infrastructure to run a public company and managing the licensing process in California.

Before joining Sunniva, Rootman worked in-house at Walton Capital Management where he served as legal counsel and chief compliance officer. In January 2017 he became general counsel of Walton International Group Inc. He has also worked at law firms Burstall Winger and Blake, Cassels & Graydon.

As a part of its move into California, earlier this month the company announced the president and CEO of Sun CA Holdings Inc., Kevin Wilkerson, had been promoted to president of Sunniva. Wilkerson will continue to be responsible for Sun CA Holdings, Sunniva's main subsidiary in the United States.

"I am looking forward to this new role as we fully develop our operations in Cathedral City and expand on our product lines through 2019 and beyond," Wilkerson said in the press release about settling in the Riverside County, California, city. "The near term will see our U.S. team focused on completing the glasshouse and continuing to develop our distribution facility and network of dispensaries in advance of anticipated increased production."