Allison B. Margolin

Allison B. Margolin has practiced cannabis law at her own law firm almost full time since she got her JD from Harvard Law School in 2002. At first, it was criminal defense work and the representation of clients needing help with California’s medical marijuana statutes. After recreational use was legalized in the state in 2016, her focus largely shifted to cannabis regulatory law and civil litigation.

Her new book, “Just Dope,” will be published in August. Its subtitle: “A Leading Attorney’s Personal Journey Inside the War on Drugs.”

When she wasn’t running the shop, she worked for a few months with her father, Bruce M. Margolin, a pioneering drug lawyer who in 1973 founded and for decades was executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, known as NORML. He’s now director emeritus.

“Both my parents are attorneys. My mom [Elyse P. Margolin] went into family law, but both had the same views on legalization,” Margolin said. “I was raised by very progressive, liberal parents. I wanted to be a writer from the time I was eight. By 12, I knew my dharma was to end the war on drugs. I knew I had it in me to make justice happen.”

Margolin said she now collaborates as of counsel with her father, who sends her cases.

In 2005, Margolin appeared in a Daily Journal profile. In it, she self-identified by the line she used in ads in alternative newspapers, “L.A.’s Dopest Attorney.” Her approach then, she said, was the intellectual argument against anti-marijuana laws: “The criminalization of drugs is kind of like criminalizing something that comes before the First Amendment rights. It’s like you have the right to freedom of expression, but before that is the right to alter your consciousness. To me, it’s like the criminalization of thought.”

Along with her standard regulatory compliance and business law clients, Margolin is in the midst of lengthy litigation on behalf of Hmong people in a battle with Northern California county officials over water rights. The conflict began when the county sought to prevent the community from using groundwater to grow marijuana commercially. Lo et al. v. County of Siskiyou et al., 2:21-cv-00999 (E.D. Cal., filed June 4, 2021).

In September 2021, Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller of Sacramento granted Margolin’s motion for a preliminary injunction, blocking the county from cutting off water to the Hmong. Margolin’s claims on behalf of her clients raised serious questions about whether the county’s permit requirements violated the plaintiff’s right to equal protection under the law.

“This case comes out of 200 years of anti-Asian discrimination,” said Margolin, who has partnered with the ACLU of Northern California and the Asian Law Caucus as amici. She said she got so involved that she’s bought a house near Mt. Shasta to be close to the litigation. “I love it there. I have less friendly neighbors in Beverly Hills.”

– John Roemer