Dinsmore & Shohl LLP is pleased to announce Partner Daniel Zinsmaster has been named the 2019 National Law Review Go-To Thought Leader for hemp and marijuana regulation.

The National Law Review 2019 Go-To Thought Leader Awards recognize 75 legal authors across the nation for their superlative written contributions to their field of practice. The publication boasts over 15,000 published thought leaders (over 100,000 articles per year), and just one in every 200 received the award this year. According to the awards site, “recipients not only demonstrate a depth of legal knowledge, but also outline the steps needed for compliance and/or adaptation. These designated authors are … reader favorites [and are] often quoted in other publications.” 

Zinsmaster is the only legal author in the United States or otherwise recognized this year by the National Law Review in the field of hemp and marijuana regulation.

“Daniel … was honored … for his contributions to Ohio’s decriminalization of hemp and hemp products and amendments to Ohio’s medical marijuana laws,” per the NLR announcement. “His articles on the changing landscape of health care, especially as it relates to these controversial marijuana-based issues, help clarify a host of complicated changes in legislation and interpretation for National Law Review readers.”

Zinsmaster has written numerous articles on the topic, all of which are available to read both on Dinsmore’s website and in the National Law Review. In addition to his writing, he also counsels clients in the cannabis industry. He has successfully advised cultivators, processors and dispensary applicants in many capacities, and counseled health care providers and medical centers seeking to incorporate medical marijuana as treatment for their patients.

He began his cannabis work in 2017, when he represented a company who had been denied a license to cultivate medical marijuana. Zinsmaster earned a reversal of that denial, and the cultivator was granted the license. It was a historic decision in the state, as it was the first ever successful administrative appeal to the Ohio Department of Commerce for a provisional license.

“This work is exciting because it involves an industry in its relative infancy with tremendous variation in regulatory schemes from state to state and an evolving federal landscape,” Zinsmaster said. “We are experiencing a significant shift of societal acceptance of the many uses of cannabis and hemp. The level of sophistication, resourcefulness, and entrepreneurial spirit evident in this space signals a strong foundation and bright future for this industry.”

This marks the second consecutive year in which a Dinsmore attorney has been designated a National Law Review Go-To Thought Leader. In 2018, Dinsmore Health Care Industry Practice Group Co-Chair Jennifer Mitchell was recognized in the Health Care Law & HIPAA category.