About

Cristina Buccola is an attorney, advisor, and educator who helps her clients build and sustain viable business enterprises.

As Chief Counsel of CB Counsel PLLC, Cristina is routinely retained by small businesses, social equity groups, and legacy market entrepreneurs in navigating cannabis and hemp licensing, legal matters, business concerns, and regulatory requirements. She also assists ancillary businesses, institutional and private investors, CPG and tech companies, artists, media outlets, and not-for-profit organizations in their cannabis concerned matters.

With two decades of experience and knowledge at her back, Cristina guides transactional matters and investment opportunities, designs licensing and brand protection programs, develops strategic ventures, and manages her clients' day-to-day legal needs. She counsels clients of all sizes, from start-ups, to established companies, and everyone in between. Cristina’s experience in M&A, private equity, capital raises, and general corporate know-how make her unique among legal practitioners in the cannabis space.

In her home state of New York, Cristina represents many retail dispensary licensees (and has helped several of them win unanimous approval from their respective Community Boards), as well as cultivation, processing, microbusiness, and distribution licensees .

Cristina is passionate about fostering a regulated, inclusive cannabis industry based on pillars of racial and economic justice. To that end she screened over 500 prospective applicants, provided cannabis education to hundreds of folks, and created a program that helped 30 justice-impacted groups apply for New York State’s Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary License (CAURD), scores of whom have subsequently won this license. She also collaborated with other cannabis community stakeholder to organize educational workshops, resources, materials, and mentors to help an estimated 100+ folks apply for the Office of Cannabis Management’s Cannabis Compliance Training and Mentorship Program. Throughout 2023 Cristina educated hundreds of CAURD licensees on capital investments and securities, intellectual property, and litigation through Our Academy, the non-profit selected by NYS to provide instruction to our newly licensed retail dispensaries.

Cristina works with elected officials on developing cannabis legalization positions and has testified in front of the New York State and New Jersey Legislatures about cannabis regulatory programs. She was a core member of the Start SMART NY coalition, one of the groups responsible for pushing New York’s historic cannabis legalization over the finish line. She is also a core member of the Federal Cannabis Regulations Working Group convened by the Drug Policy Alliance to advise Congress on cannabis regulatory issues. Cristina has also supported programming and events that bring legal relief (expungement, record sealing) and wraparound services (housing, healthcare, food) to communities most disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs.

Cristina has taught cannabis courses at the law school and collegiate levels. She was appointed to the Committee on Cannabis Law of the New York State Bar Association in 2021 and serves as the first Secretary of the New York State Bar Association Cannabis Law Section.; she is a member of the Policy Committee of the Cannabis Association of New York (CANY).

Before dedicating herself exclusively to CB Counsel, Cristina served as the General Counsel of High Times and was a partner in an adult-use cultivation concern. She cut her teeth in the M&A and private equity departments of white-shoe law firms in NYC and Chicago. She also served as the General Counsel and Director of Human Resources of an international technology company. She received her BA from The Gallatin School at New York University and her JD from The University of Chicago Law School and is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Illinois (retired).

engagements

Cristina dedicates a portion of CB Counsel to engaging with elected officials and state agencies, working with grass roots organizations, and speaking to audiences nationwide about cannabis and hemp business, legal, and justice considerations, challenges, and solutions.

On The Revel: The Questions You Need to Ask Before you Fu*k with Someone in Cannabis, February 2023

CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism: AudioFiles, October 2022

New York City Small Business Services, Cannabis NYC: Real Estate, Financing & Business Supports Subcommittee, September 2022

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ Cannabis Roundtable, June 2022

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine’s Cannabis Education Series, June 2022

HVADC: Licensing Opportunities in NYS Panel, June 2022

Our Academy: Retail Bootcamp, May 2022

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine’s Panel re: Downtown Cannabis with Community Boards 1, 2, 3, 4, April 2022

Senator Rivera’s Community Webinar re: Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary Licenses, April 2022

Senator Sanders’ NY Cannabis & Combatting the Legacy Stigma Panel, April 2022

Medgar Edgar College’s Showcase Panel re: Social Equity, April 2022

Network of Bar Leaders: Ensuring Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in the NY Cannabis Industry CLE, February 2022

Emmanuel Baptist Church: The Business of Cannabis: Licenses Chat, February 2022

New York State Bar Association, Committee on Cannabis Law Annual Meeting: Economic Equity and Community Reinvestment; Local Opt Out, January 2022

New York City Bar Association: New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act’s Impact on Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs CLE, October 2021

New York State Bar Association: Using and Representing Recreational Cannabis After NYSBA Ethics Opinion 1225 CLE, September 2021

Made in NYC: Craft Cannabis in NYC, May 2021

Long Island Business News: Business of Cannabis Panel, April 2021

National Food Law Student Network: Hemp & Hemp Production Law and Policy, March 2021

Women in Cannabis: NY Virtual Lobby Day and Conference, March 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church: The Business of Cannabis: Knowing Cannabis Law Panel, February 2021

NYC Manhattan Community Board 12: The Business of Cannabis 101, February 2021

Fox Soul: Green Enterprise, Cristina Buccola, February 2021

National Expungement Week 2020 Co-Coordinator for New York City, September 2020

New York University: CannaLaw Restorative Justice Session, September 2020

Farm School NYC: The Resilience of an Ancestral Plant in the Past, Present, and Future: Hemp and Marijuana, July 2020

Women in Cannabis: NY Virtual Lobby Day and Conference, March 2020

Senator John Liu’s Town Hall re: Possible Legalization of Marijuana with Senator Liz Krueger, September 2019

National Expungement Week 2019 Co-Coordinator for New York City, September 2019

Pace University, Elisabeth Haub School of Law: A Conversation About Marijuana Regulation, June 2019

Diversity, Financial & Legal Considerations for Medical Professionals, June 2019

New York City Bar Association: Springtime for Cannabis, May 2019

Senator James Sanders’ Cannabis & Banking Symposium, April 2019

City of Tomorrow: Real Estate, Architecture & Design Summit: What Our City Looks Like When Cannabis Legalization Takes Effect Panel, March 2019

Coveteur x Limone Creative: Women in Cannabis Summit, March 2019

New York Conference of Mayors: Summit on Recreational Cannabis: Economic Impact, Social Justice, and Equity Panel, February 2019

Emmanuel Baptist Church: The Business of Cannabis: Social Justice & Policy Reform Panel, February 2019

Drug Policy Alliance: Marijuana: Justice, Equity, Reinvestment Conference: Crafting Regulations Panel, December 2018

Assemblywoman Sandy Galef’s Town Meeting: Recreational Marijuana in New York, November 2018

Boston Bar Association: Cannabis Law Conference: Corporate and Investment Law in the Cannabis Industry, November 2018

New York State Assembly: Public Hearing on Adult Use of Marijuana, October 2018

2018 Forbes Under 30 Summit: Cannabis Capitalism, October 2018

2018 New York Cannabis Summit, August 2018

2018 Southern Tier Hemp Conference: Public Policy Panel, June 2018

Cannabis Law Summit: Legalization Through Legislation, May 2018

New Jersey Assembly: Meeting of the Assembly Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee re: Cannabis Legalization, May 2018

New York Cannabis Parade, Speaker, May 2018

National Action Network: Legalize It, Don’t Criminalize It: How To Turn Mass Incarceration Into Economic Opportunity Through The Legalization of Marijuana, April 2018

Public Advocate Letitia James' Roundtable on Cannabis Legalization in New York, April 2018

New Jersey Assembly: Meeting of the Assembly Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee re: Cannabis Legalization, March 2018

New York State Assembly: Public Hearing on Marijuana Decriminalization and Regulation, January 2018

Vegas Cannabis Summit: Legal, Insurance & Banking Considerations for the Cannabis Industry, July 2017

Sullivan County Bar Association: Marijuana CLE, May 2017

High NY: Cannabis Business & Investment Panel, February 2017