Government, Marijuana

Former Federal Prosecutor Buys First Bag Of Legal Marijuana In California

He says he's 'always had a soft spot for cannabis.'

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Early in my career I was a special trial attorney in the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. where I traveled all around the country prosecuting cases. That’s how I wound up in San Francisco. I came here to prosecute a case. George Foreman’s manager, actually, and I got friendly with the U.S. Attorney and he offered me a position here and so I was assistant U.S. Attorney here in San Francisco for a number of years.

Mostly financial crimes. I’ve always had a soft spot for cannabis. I guess it’s OK — since I’ve won some cases — to let this out but, basically, I barely got out of high school. I graduated 389th out of 411th and then I started to smoke weed and it all came together. And I got my act together and I went to college and then I went to law school and somehow I always knew there’d be a connection between cannabis and myself, but quite frankly, I never imagined this prominent role.

— Henry Wykowski, commenting on his past career and what led him to become one of the world’s top marijuana attorneys. In his cannabis practice, Wykowski specializes in complex white-collar litigation, like federal asset forfeiture and tax cases. At 6 a.m. on January 1, 2018, he purchased California’s very first bag of legal marijuana for $20.01 at the Harborside dispensary in Oakland. Wykowski serves as Harborside’s tax attorney, and he’d earlier saved the building from a federal asset forfeiture.

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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