Federal Hemp Legislation and Regulation

Rend Al-Mondhiry Related Seminars and Products

Partner

Amin Talati Wasserman LLP

Rend Al-Mondhiry advises the dietary supplement, food, cosmetic, and over-the-counter medicine industries on a broad range of regulatory and compliance matters, with a focus on helping companies navigate the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape for hemp and CBD products at both the federal and state level. She is committed to helping companies responsibly develop and market products, drawing on her years of experience advising the nation’s leading dietary supplement and food companies on complex ingredient and labeling issues. She is also a frequent speaker and author on emerging legal and regulatory issues in the industry and is regularly quoted in the trade press.

Rend’s practice focuses on reviewing product labeling, ingredients, and advertising to determine compliance with federal and state regulations, and assisting companies in matters before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and National Advertising Division (NAD). She also advises clients on compliance with California’s Proposition 65, U.S. Customs issues, class action defense strategies, and FDA matters including Warning Letters, recalls, detentions, seizures, and import alerts.

Rend brings a unique perspective to these issues, having served as Associate General Counsel at the Council for Responsible Nutrition, one of the leading trade associations representing the dietary supplement and functional food industry. She has advocated on the industry’s behalf numerous times before FDA, FTC, Congress, and state attorneys general, and has substantial experience initiating and defending challenges before the NAD. In addition, she has over ten years of experience analyzing and responding to legislative and regulatory changes at the federal and state levels, working closely with scientific experts to ensure policy positions are not only legally sound but grounded in science. She has also assisted trade associations with non-profit compliance, strategic planning, and corporate governance matters.

When she’s not spending time with her husband and two very active boys, Rend enjoys running, practicing yoga, and reading historical fiction.

Amber Littlejohn, Esq. Related Seminars and Products

Of Counsel

Ice Miller LLP

Amber Littlejohn has served as a lawyer, strategist, and advocate for businesses in emerging markets for more than 15 years, providing government and business affairs services to businesses, nonprofit organizations, and lawmakers in regulated industries. She creates innovative legislative, regulatory, and public engagement strategies to access and grow markets, stabilize supply chains, and reduce crisis frequency and reach.

Named a Top Cannabis Lobbyist by Business Insider, Amber is a nationally recognized voice for the cannabis industry and related policy initiatives appearing regularly in national media outlets. She has testified before Congress on issues including small business capital access and cannabis legalization. She engages regularly with lawmakers and regulators at all levels of government. Prior to her work in cannabis, she was a business owner, strategist, and advocate for specialty consumer packaged goods and consumer health products including dietary supplements and sports nutrition products. 

Prior to joining Ice Miller, Amber was president and chief strategic officer for a public affairs firm that served to provide solutions in the areas of legislative and regulatory policy development, as well as government and regulatory affairs. She has also served as policy counsel and a consultant for several organizations in Washington, D.C.

Andrea Steel Related Seminars and Products

Partner

Frost Brown Todd LLP

Andrea is a partner in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group as well as a member of the Hemp Industry Team, focusing her practice on both affordable housing and cannabis business law.  In the cannabis space, Andrea has deep rooted knowledge and experience with both hemp and marijuana regulatory and business law. Andrea’s cannabis business clients come from across the supply chain spectrum from cultivators to retailers, as well as distributors, testing labs and more. She advises on regulatory compliance, risk analysis and mitigation, hemp/medical marijuana licensing, cannabis-related business issues and contracts, product labeling/marketing, policy-making participation and real estate issues.

Andrea frequently advises clients on issues unique to the industry, such as delta-8 and other novel cannabinoids, conducting state-by-state research and providing guidance and analysis on proposed laws to policymakers and others. She serves on the Executive Committee of the International Cannabis Bar Association's Governing Board as its Vice President of Operations, as well as co-chairs its Legislative Advisement Committee. She has also been a Vice Chair of the American Bar Association’s Cannabis Law and Policy Committee since 2021. Andrea is a sought-after speaker at industry events, providing insight into recently approved and proposed laws, rules and regulations and other cannabis business matters. At her prior firm, she successfully launched, led and grew their cannabis business practice group.

In the affordable housing area, Andrea represents both for-profit and non-profit developers across the country, including public and private entities, as well as public housing authorities and tax increment reinvestment zones. Her work is concentrated on the legal representation of developers of affordable housing utilizing both 9% and 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credits, tax exempt bond financing, CDBG and HOME Program funding and other federal, state and local subsidy and economic development programs, as well as the stimulus grants created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 including the Tax Credit Assistance Program, Tax Credit Exchange Program (Section 1602 Program) and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Andrea has represented developers in complex transactions which have combined federal and state Historic Tax Credits with LIHTCs and tax-exempt bonds, and transactions which have involved multiple layers of funding including EB-5 and tax increment financing. Her practice also includes closing construction, bridge and/or permanent loans, conventional as well as Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae loans, FHA-insured loans, and state and local financing. Incorporating various economic development incentives is another area in which her creativity and experience allows her to excel.

Andrea’s work with public housing authorities (PHAs) includes closing transactions that include HUD funds and/or HUD-insured mortgages, including Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and mixed-finance transactions, those involving Section 8 financing, 221(d)(4) & 223(f) FHA mortgages, Federal Home Loan Bank AHP loans and CDBG Disaster Recovery funds. She has worked with PHAs throughout Texas in addition to Louisiana, Arkansas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Andrea is also experienced with assisting developers navigate through various state agency processes, including assistance with funding applications, appeals, and compliance issues. Her work also encompasses obtaining ad valorem tax exemptions for qualified projects, and she also assists clients with real estate acquisitions and dispositions.

With both affordable housing and cannabis being industries that necessitate guidance across a wide range of practice areas, Andrea enjoys collaborating with other team members at Frost Brown Todd to provide clients a full suite of legal services on any issue impacting their businesses, including trademarks, patents, e-commerce, tax matters, debt and equity financing opportunities, corporate structuring and more.

Eric Steenstra Related Seminars and Products

President

Vote Hemp

Eric Steenstra co-founded the pioneering hemp clothing and lifestyle brand Ecolution with Steve DeAngelo in 1992. Eric went on to lead the nation’s first hemp trade group, serving as the Executive Director of the Hemp Industries Association from 2007 to 2016. Eric currently serves as the president of Vote Hemp and Vice President of the California Hemp Council. He has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences and trusted source to the media, including CBS, New York Times, Forbes, CNN, Rolling Stone, Reuters and the Washington Post.

In his role at Vote Hemp, Eric led the effort to pass hemp farming legislation nationwide and defend the hemp market. In 2001, Eric was part of the team that led the legal effort to overturn the DEA rule banning hemp products containing “any” THC in them. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately overturned the DEA interpretive rule in 2004 catapulting the market for hemp foods forward. In 2005, he worked with Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) to draft the first modern U.S. hemp legislation introduced in Congress (H.R. 3037). In 2012 he worked with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) to get companion hemp legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate (S. 3501). Eric worked with Congressman Polis (D-CO) and Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) to have hemp legislation included in the 2014 Farm Bill. The 2014 Farm Bill authorized the first legal hemp farming in over 50 years and resulted in 78,176 acres of hemp being planted across 24 states in 2018. Vote Hemp also played an integral role in the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill including fully removing hemp from the Controlled Substances Act. 

The California Hemp Council (CHC) worked to ensure that the state was ready for hemp legalization at the national level and successfully sponsored and passed state legislation (SB 1409, Chapter No. 986, Statutes of 2018) to allow California farmers to enter the hemp market and meet the growing demands of hemp product companies. The CHC secured the passage of SB 153 which updated California hemp laws to be in sync with the 2018 Farm Bill. If not for CHC efforts, California farmers would likely not be growing hemp today. 

Eric was part of groups that were awarded dispensary licenses in Maryland, Oregon and West Virginia and helped to oversee operations in. the Maryland store.  He currently is consulting on various hemp and cannabis projects including advising the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Hemp Commission.