 So, are we enabling unapproved therapies by doing this? Do we? Is it the camel's nose under the tent? I mean, you know, we have a lot of questions with us. Well, they're going on. I mean, it is full place ads. If you've got any of these things show up in the hotel room on Sunday morning and we've got a cure. Yeah, exactly. So, it's kind of people who are at the end of their rope in terms of their health. Senator Engman has a question and Senator McQuarran, go ahead. Thank you. So, Jen, I'm sorry, have you ever seen in statute something that specifies like when consent has to be given because, you know, like, I've had procedures in hospitals and I'm like, you know, I'm not in any, like they even take my glasses off so I can't read what I'm signing in. But it's like, why didn't they give this to me sooner? Is there ever anything that actually specifies like it has to be done, you know, a certain period of time before you actually show up? Medicated? Yeah, medicated. Not that I'm aware of other than, you know, it would go to your sort of capacity to provide informed consent depending on what it was in the process. And there could be some professional, I think, professional liability issues there. But otherwise... We don't specify what that has to be in the doctor's office. Because I'll get doing that, right? We can certainly look at doing that. Yeah, okay. Thank you. So, Senator McQuarran. There is a federal policy of right to try, right, for people that can act the end with puffing balloons. So we had looked at legislation on that in here. Yeah, that was my bill. I got killed on that. Right, and I do think something may have been, I don't know whether people were dragging it more. It may have been enacted at the federal... Right, so this wouldn't say you can't do it. This would say there has to be certain notice, informed consent, and advertising requirements around that. So it's already allowed. This stuff is allowing, explicitly. Right, right. So it's happening, right. So my understanding is that these are happening now. These are the same products that are being used under right to try. I don't know. So I guess the question for me is, there will be someone talking with us about FDA rules. I think Dr. Weiss will. I mean, I have talked with him, communicated with him, but just in case we don't get enough, we might be looking to you for some help. Okay. But don't overdo it. Okay. Okay. All right. So... And I think we had talked to those actually in the context of the right to try bill. Yes. Just about kind of different stages of clinical trials and that kind of stuff so I can dust off that. Okay. Anything else on that bill? So we'll look forward to Valentine's Day. Now we have something to look forward to. That's 252. Long-stemmed red roses. Right. Long-stemmed red roses. Slow-stemmed. That was really bad. Long-stem cells. Long-stem cells. That sounds like a good trick. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we'll move on to S-288. And so we're going to look at the bill that the proposal of the amendments that Jen has and then Nolan also has... I have a copy of the fiscal note. I think we should do it after we have the bill walked through because it billed slightly different but... I didn't know you wanted me to... You don't have to. We'll just hand it out when I'm ready for that. Okay. We're good. So S-288, do we have something new on that? You should, yes. Refresh your page. It's just one up. It's there. Okay. There it is. And so that's draft 1.3. Yes. All right. You know when you're ready. Almost. Turn my page. Okay. All right. Please. So this is S-288, an act relating to banning flavor tobacco products and e-liquids. This is a strike-all amendment with a lot of new language and so I've tried to identify a kind of when a whole section is new and when a section was already in there but I've made some changes to the language. So I've used bold and highlight for that. There's a lot in here because I, as I was going through the tobacco statutes, it seems like there is currently not a lot of reference to, there's a lot of reference to tobacco substitutes, which are kind of the devices for e-cigarettes but not a lot of reference to the liquids. We're putting a definition in here. I was adding it in a bunch of places but you may want to, you know, you don't have to do them. You just have to know what you're choosing to do or not do. So the first thing that I have is a finding section and this is based on findings that were, or some facts that were provided by some of the advocates. So do you want me to go through the findings? Yes. Okay. So this would have the general assembly find that first, tobacco use is costly. Vermont spends $348 million annually to treat tobacco-caused illnesses including $87.2 million each year in Medicaid expenses. This translates into a tax burden each year of $759 per Vermont household. Productivity losses add an additional $232.8 million each year. Tobacco use is growing due to e-cigarettes. 7% of Vermont high school students smoke but if e-cigarette use is included, 28% of Vermont youths use some form of tobacco product. More than one in four Vermont high school students use e-cigarettes. Use more than doubled among this age group from 12% to 26% between 2017 and 2019. More students report frequent use of e-cigarettes which indicates possible nicotine addiction. According to the 2019 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 31% of Vermont high school students, high school e-cigarette users used e-cigarettes daily from 15% in 2017. Flavored products are fueling the epidemic. 97% of youth e-cigarette users nationally reported in 2019 that they had used a flavored tobacco product in the last month and 70% cited flavors as the reason for their use. E-cigarette and e-liquid manufacturers have marketed their products in youth-friendly flavors such as gummy bear, birthday cake, candy cane menthol, and bubble gum. Mint and menthol flavored e-cigarettes are increasing in popularity among youths. Over the past four years, mint and menthol went from being some of the least popular to being some of the most popular e-cigarette flavors among high school students. Evidence indicates that if any e-cigarette flavors remain on the market, youth will shift from one flavor to another. For example, after Juul restricted the availability of fruit, candy, and other e-cigarette flavors in retail stores in November 2018, use of mint and menthol e-cigarettes by high school users increased sharply from 42.3% reportedly using mint and menthol e-cigarettes in 2017 to 63.9% using them in 2019. It is essential that menthol cigarettes are included in a ban on flavored tobacco products, flavored e-liquids, and flavored e-cigarettes to prevent youths who became addicted to nicotine through vaping from transitioning to traditional cigarettes. Menthol creates a cooling and numbing effect that reduces the harshness of cigarette smoke and suppresses the cough reflex. These effects make menthol cigarettes more appealing to young, inexperienced smokers, and research shows that menthol cigarettes are more likely to addict youth. Youth smokers are the age group most likely to use menthol cigarettes, but are also likely to quit if menthol cigarettes are no longer available. 54% of youths 12 to 17 years of age nationwide who smoke use menthol cigarettes. Nearly 65% of young menthol smokers say they would quit smoking if menthol cigarettes were banned. Eliminating the sale of menthol tobacco products promotes health equity. Menthol cigarette use is more prevalent among persons of color who smoke than among white persons who smoke and is more common among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender smokers than among heterosexual smokers. 85% of African American adult smokers use menthol cigarettes and of black youths 12 to 17 years of age who smoke, 7 out of 10 use menthol cigarettes. Tobacco industry documents show a concerted effort to target African Americans through specific advertising efforts. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, agrees that menthol cigarettes harm the public health. In 2013, the FDA published a report concluding that removal of menthol cigarettes from the market would improve public health. And finally, Vermont cannot wait for the FDA to take action. The same federal legislation that was passed in 2019 banning all other flavored cigarettes allowed the FDA to regulate or ban menthol. Despite taking public comment on the dangers of menthol in 2013 and again in 2018, the FDA has still failed to act. The new policy released by the FDA on January 1st, 2020 falls far short from the dangers of smoking and nicotine addiction. The FDA's policy bans only flavored cartridge or pod-based e-cigarettes, and even then exempts those that are menthol or tobacco flavored. Open tank e-cigarettes and the flavored e-liquids used to fill them can still be sold, as can flavored, self-contained, disposable e-cigarettes. So, okay. Go ahead. On line four. You said that. Of the, of where we are on that. Yes. Okay. Four. Yeah. You said 2019. I'm sorry. It says here. 2009. I just spoke. 2009 is correct. Yes. Is correct. Yes. I'm trying to go more modern. But yes, 2009 is correct. The federal legislation that was passed in 2009 banned flavored cigarettes other than menthol, but allowed the FDA to regulate or ban menthol. Okay. Thank you for the question. Any questions on that? It's a new section. Right. It's a whole new section, so you have not seen that before. There's some a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. There's some a lot. So, my question is on the disposable e-cigarettes. There was a recent article in the New York Times indicating that disposable e-cigarettes was kind of a loophole for flavors. I mean, I don't, I wouldn't, I won't characterize it. It's not. You can't characterize it. I understand that. Yes, there is. Right. So there are, my understanding is there are three different types of e-cigarettes. There is the, the ones that use the cartridges or pods. Those are the ones that are, that the FDA is taking enforcement action to ban. If they have not received pre-market approval. And then there are open tank e-cigarettes. So that's the kind where you can go into a shop and fill it, you know, or have it filled or fill it yourself. And then there are the self-contained disposable e-cigarettes that's a one-time use and then you throw it out and those are available in flavors as well. You recycle it appropriately. You dispose of it appropriately. Right. But they are similar. I remember seeing the pictures and some examples. They're similar to the jewels. They're kind of cool. I think you have the difference between the tank things were not something you could use in school and not get caught. They're big. They're clunky. They're ugly. And they're expensive. And they're expensive and they look, yeah, like your grandmother's claw hoppers. I mean, they're, which is a different market. But the disposable ones, they look like heads dispensers. Right. And they were cute. Right. They're cute. All different colors. Okay. All right. That's that section. Right. We need to review that. We can certainly modify as the community chooses. So then we get into, I ended up just opening up all of Chapter 40 in Title VII, the tobacco products chapter. So in the definitions section, I added. Can I just ask you to introduce yourself to the committee, please? Yes, ma'am. My name is Skyler Janess. I'm the Director of Compliance and Enforcement for the Department of Liquor and Laundry. So this is, thank you for being here. I know that we reached out to you and we appreciate your presence. So we're going to be having a throw of a line to a friend from time to time. So that's very good. Thank you. You're welcome. And feel free to raise your hand at any point so we can get to your knowledge. Absolutely. Yes. And I did reach out to Mr. Janess yesterday with a couple of, but he's not seen the draft either. Okay. This is perfect. All right. All right. So the first thing is in the, I added in to make changes to the definition in the tobacco products chapter of tobacco products. And you'll see later, and this goes back to the issue we talked about last week about some sort of circularity and potential conflict in the definition of tobacco products in this chapter and the definition of other tobacco products in the tax statutes. So in trying to decouple those from each other because they don't line up well, I struck the language in the tobacco products statutes that gives kind of a catch-all for other tobacco products as defined in the tax statutes because those are both over and under inclusive of what we're referring to as tobacco products in these statutes. So I also made changes then in the definitions in the tax statutes, and I have run this by the tax department which had some helpful suggestions that I've made in here. So, you know, obviously this is the first time people or most people are seeing this, so it's possible that other changes need to be made. But I just took the language in the tax statute definition of other tobacco products and put it in here, the part that seems applicable and put it in here. So this would now say tobacco products mean cigarettes, little cigars, roll your own tobacco, snuff cigars, new smokeless tobacco, this is all current law. And instead of saying, and other tobacco products as defined in the tax statutes, it would use that, the language. And any other product manufactured from, derived from, or containing tobacco that is intended for human consumption by smoking, by chewing, or in any other manner. So that's what the tax statute says. So that's part of what the tax statute says, then the tax statute gets into e-cigarette stuff and then the tax statute says, but it doesn't include cigarettes, roll your own tobacco, snuff cigars, and new smokeless tobacco, which this one says it does. That's how they were sort of conflicting. Yes, so the tax statute says, other tobacco products means any product manufactured from, derived from, or containing tobacco that is intended for human consumption by smoking, by chewing, or in any other manner. And then it goes on to add the tobacco substitute stuff. So we're not really changing what's happening in the tax statutes for purposes of what is taxed under the tax statutes, but we are kind of decoupling them from each other. And then in the definition of e-liquid, the tax department had, I think, a helpful suggestion that the liquid itself may be, something else may be happening to it other than heating, and in order to be sure we're capturing everything you intend to be capturing, this would add some language to make the definition e-liquid means the solution, substance, or other material used in or with a tobacco substitute that is heated or otherwise acted upon to produce an aerosol, vapor, or emission to be inhaled by the user regardless of whether the liquid contains anything. I have two questions. So we've heard recently that now that there is synthetic nicotine. So it's nicotine that is produced in the laboratory and not derived from tobacco. Does this cover that? Yeah, because this says regardless of whether it contains nicotine. My other question is kind of a basic question. It's a little stupid at this point, but how do you get it? What is the chemical reaction that causes the vapor to vaporize? So you're asking a lawyer that question? So just throwing it out there, because I don't know that we've had that testimony. I'd like to know how that happens. Anyway, we don't have the answers. What else is on notice? The e in the term e-liquid is short for electronic. And the electronic effect is to eat fluids. We don't use the electronics for anything else. So this is a term. You can call it anything you want. It's a term that gets used a lot. So I used it here, but I suppose it could be acted upon in a way other than heating, which is where that could be a volcanic reaction. Right? Making soda and something like that. Is there some kind of aerosol? Yeah, it could be. It could be modified. Well, maybe we want to use the word aerosol. It's right there. It's there. It's in terms of e-liquid. I think e-liquid is at this point a term of art. It came in to the jar. I mean, e-liquids are sort of overall used with e-cigarettes. We don't actually use that term statute either. We started with tobacco substitutes. We reached up with it. Okay. Alright. De-scriptive. De-scriptive. Alright. So then in the existing section, so this is new to the bill, existing section 7BSA 1002, this is the requirement to have a license, that a retailer have a license to sell various products at retail. And so I added e-liquids in here because they had not specifically been half-shered in the licensure requirement. And so we've talked, I think Senator Cummings has given an example in the past of somebody going to another state, coming back and selling these flavored products to their friends. And I said, no, because they don't even part of the issue is that they wouldn't have a license. And then I realized there isn't anything in this statute that specifically requires them to be licensed. So I added language in addition to not engaging in the retail sale of tobacco products, tobacco substitutes, or tobacco paraphernalia without a tobacco license. I added e-liquids. I didn't put them under, I didn't refer to them specifically in the tobacco substitute endorsement piece that somebody has to have. You decide with input from others whether that's appropriate. But to begin with, I thought I'd put it under the licensure requirement. And so then throughout, as we're talking about these other substances, I added e-liquid. And then similarly in subsection G, no person was allowed to engage in the retail sale of these products unless they are a licensed wholesaler or acquired them from, purchased them from a licensed wholesaler. And so in that section based on language from we've added last year, it had said substances containing nicotine or otherwise intended for use for the tobacco substitute, and I replaced that with the new e-liquids language. Then in section 1003, as we had discussed doing last week, specifically added e-liquids to the ban on selling tobacco products, tobacco substitutes, and tobacco paraphernalia to anyone under 21 years of age. So everywhere those terms were used, I added e-liquids. I also noticed that in subdivision C2A, where we have an existing exception about where items can be displayed or stored that did not include tobacco substitutes, so right now there is a requirement that someone holding a tobacco license may only display or store tobacco products or tobacco substitutes and have added or any liquid behind a sales counter or in any other area of the establishment that is inaccessible to the public or in a locked container. But then there's an exception saying it doesn't apply to a display of, and it only says tobacco products located in a commercial establishment in which by law a new person under 21 years of age is permitted to enter at any time. So it seemed appropriate to add tobacco substitutes there to be consistent with the requirement about where they can be displayed or stored, and if tobacco substitutes were added it seemed appropriate to add e-liquids. So again, these are all things you can consider whether you think there are appropriate changes. I'd like to progress the language and just so you can see what else is in here, but it didn't make any changes. Page 8, section 1004, age for the sale of tobacco products, tobacco substitutes, I added e-liquids and tobacco paraphernalia. So again, in existing law somebody has to provide proper proof of age and if they don't provide proper proof of age then the licensee is entitled to refuse to sell them and so I added e-liquids here as well. Then section 1005, persons under 21 years of age, possession of tobacco products, misrepresenting age or purchasing, it's actually now that I look at this, I think it's one thing I've been wanting to change, I believe it should be misrepresenting age four, purchasing tobacco products. I will change that while we're in here. So this is the prohibition on a person under 21 years of age possessing, purchasing or attempting to purchase these products, e-liquids, unless they are a holder of a tobacco license and are in possession of them to affect a sale in the course of employment. And this is the $25 civil penalty, so again I don't know if this would ban people, still ban people under 21 from possessing e-liquids, whether or not they are flavored. Last year you had put in or in the past we had put in tobacco substitutes, so the devices themselves, so again I've been adding e-liquids everywhere, the devices themselves were implicated, but wanted you to have an opportunity to hear from others on whether that was as intended. Posting of signs, section 1006, a person licensed under this chapter, a retailer must post in a conspicuous place, a warning sign that the sale of various products, this would add e-liquids to persons under 21 years of age is prohibited. Then on page 10, section 1007, furnishing tobacco to persons under 21 years of age in report, this again is adding a penalty to a person who sells or furnishes tobacco products, tobacco substitutes, adding e-liquids or tobacco paraphernalia to someone under 21 years of age and has the, still directs the division of liquor control to do compliance testing, there were some changes to the license suspensions last year for multiple violations, and then in subdivision three, on page 11 and looking at this, the divisions report, the division of liquor control and the department of liquor and lottery, their compliance report goes to certain committees, it's not going to this committee, so I wanted to flag that in case you wanted to add yourselves and your house counterpart right now, it goes only to the house general affairs and the senate economic development housing general affairs committee, and then I noted that the tobacco evaluation and review board last year was folded into the substance misuse prevention oversight and advisory council, so I swapped those out. You can think about whether you want this committee and the human services committee to receive this compliance testing report or just know that it's out there. Yes, I mean it is, this obviously will have to be reviewed by economic development. Well the only change to this other than the name of the council that's getting the report is adding the compliance testing and prohibition or penalty for e-liquids as well as the devices we saw. Alright, then section 109 and I labeled this with the question we keep because it had been in the earlier version but I think there had been some discussion about whether it should stay in or not and this is one of the things I reached out to the department of like remodeling about is adding, so under current law any cigarettes or other tobacco products that have been sold, offered for sale or possessed for sale in violation of section 1003 which is the sale of tobacco products to minors and some other other requirements for retailers. Anything that was sold, offered for sale or possessed for sale in violation of that statute and some other statutes throughout the green books and any commercial cigarette rolling machines possessed or used in violation of section 1011 are deemed contraband and subject to seizure by the commissioner of liquor and lottery or their agents or employees, the commissioner of taxes or employees or law enforcement officer were directed to do so by the commissioner and those items would be cigarettes I'm sorry, lost something straight through all items seized under this subsection would be destroyed so I added that this would apply not only to cigarettes and other tobacco products but tobacco substitutes e-liquids and tobacco paraphernalia so that's certainly broader than existing law but a lot of the provisions have already been added to some of those statutes and then added also section 1010 which is the internet sales provision that we worked on last year and 1013 which is the new flavor ban so some expansion in the contraband and seizure statute and there was not much testimony on this but what there was I think suggested that maybe it shouldn't stay and I think the department may have thought on whether it should be internet that I will let them speak to and you're talking specifically about 1009? Yes we'll hear from the department internet sales I added into this statute this is the one that you view the legislature and I think to some extent this committee looked at last year with respect to internet sales and mail order sales of cigarettes and tobacco products and tobacco substitutes so last year's language said substances containing nicotine or otherwise intended for use of the tobacco substitute you just struck that language and substituted or replaced it with e-liquids and then at the end of that section under violations of the section of the punishment and allowing the attorney general to impose a civil penalty I realized that in last year's language I didn't update the piece that talks about each shipment or transport of cigarettes while you're on tobacco little cigars or snuff to include tobacco substitutes e-liquids or tobacco paraphernalia constituting a separate violation so I added that language in there I skipped over section 1011 because it relates to cigarette rolling machines and wasn't relevant to what you're working on in this bill didn't seem it to me can I just ask a question so this prohibits like individual sales online but it can be sold to a wholesale right so nobody can cause these items under and this is as you enacted last year nobody can cause any of these items ordered or purchased by mail or online or by telephone or other electronic network to be shipped to anyone other than a licensed wholesaler or retail section 1012 my note here is add e-liquids I didn't make any changes in this section because I didn't want to get into changing it if you were not interested but this is an existing section of statute talking about liquid nicotine and saying basically require child resistant packaging for any liquid or gel substance containing nicotine and any nicotine liquid container and then we have definitions of child resistant packaging and nicotine liquid container this is liquid okay liquids what what is liquid nicotine it's the e-liquids that have nicotine so it's first a subset so the question it's not the patches no so my question for you on this is do you want me to revise this language to apply to all e-liquids whether or not they contain nicotine or I could use our definition of e-liquids to specify nicotine it seems like it might be a good idea to have consistent definition or consistent language throughout but I didn't want to start monkeying with it without you having an opportunity to give me some direction on whether and to what extent you want to change this so you're not banning that well you're not banning all of them you're not banning it to say alright so it's just so it would be the one the only thing left is straight tobacco yes once we get to the next section yes or no cannabis that's not a touchy enough amp and cannabis you can smoke all you want and right now I'm gonna have to tell the THD I know the bill was about that right I mean I think liquid liquid cannabis would be things that are going to be faked would be captured in the definition of e-liquid but they're not in your necessarily in your flavor you can't fake that mission smoke you what? you can't fake them unless you are doing it through you might want to look at what we're doing this because we had to accept the tax the dispensaries which vaping is the delivery system of choice for many people at the dispensary right so specifically or generally the question is on section 1012 and the question is whether or not to include what in this the question is really should I should I amend this section to use the e-liquid language and if so do you want to specific to e-liquids containing nicotine or all of them and who's going to be able to help us with this besides ourselves don't have an answer for that I think we'll be on help you know that I think it makes sense to be consistent with your terminology throughout the chapter as long as we don't lose the meaning but I think the particular policy question would be do you want this do you want child proof packaging just for substances containing nicotine or any e-liquids just e-liquids containing nicotine or all of them alright and then we have section 1013 the one we looked at last time which is really kind of why the bill you brought the bill forward in the first place and this is the ban on flavored tobacco products flavored tobacco substitutes and flavored e-liquids so it has the definitions make any changes to the definitions of characterizing flavor flavored e-liquid flavored tobacco product flavored tobacco substitute and it still prohibits the sale anyone from selling offering for sale giving, providing, transporting, manufacturing or otherwise distributing one or more flavor tobacco products flavored e-liquids or flavored tobacco substitutes I took out the language that you had asked to take out that would ban possession possession purchase or attempt purchase of flavored tobacco products flavored e-liquids flavored tobacco substitutes so could I still vape cannabis so I'm not right I'm not familiar enough with the cannabis laws but okay then if you grew it yourself I suppose I could share as a friend so okay the good question we'll also ask DLL Skyler that question as well and then you had asked to put in the same penalty provision that we have for somebody who sells to someone underage so this has a person who violates this section shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $100 for a first offense not more than $500 for any subsequent offense and the action would be brought in the same manner as for a traffic violation at the judicial bureau and brought within 24 hours of the occurrence and then you'll see that next section, section 3 is new it would add these violations to the judicial bureau's jurisdiction so violations of that ban relating to flavored tobacco products flavored e-liquids and flavored tobacco substitutes then I added the rest of them are kind of some farming changes adding e-liquids in places where it also seemed like they should be so the next one is an existing provision in Title 7 talking about the penalty provisions in the alcoholic beverages section or rest of the title and saying that the provisions of that penalty section don't apply to a violation of subsection 1005a relating to the purchase of tobacco products tobacco substitutes I added e-liquids or tobacco paraphernalia by a person under h21 so then in section 5 this was as I was trying to think about what where you might have unintentional exceptions remaining in the statutes under current law it is prohibited to use tobacco products and tobacco substitutes on public school grounds and public school sponsored functions so I thought perhaps it would make sense to add e-liquids here as well generally you're using them in combination with a tobacco substitute but I did see like it presented a fuller picture of the prohibition I added in the charge and creation of the substance misuse prevention oversight and advisory council this is one you worked on I think with K&E last year that folded a few different boards and councils together one of their charges has to do with looking at all substances at risk of misuse including tobacco products tobacco substitutes under current law and substances containing nicotine or that are otherwise intended for use with a tobacco substitute so I added and e-liquids and then those all get modified by that as defined in 7BSA section 1001 we're almost done then we have the tax this is the definitions for the cigarette and other tobacco tax statutes in title 32 so this is the part I was moving to earlier where I tried to clean up the definitions so this would have in the definition of other tobacco products nice in the definition of other tobacco products under existing law it's any product manufactured from or containing tobacco that is intended for human consumption by smoking by chewing or in any other manner and then it goes on to say including products sold as a tobacco substitute which themselves don't really contain tobacco and including any liquids again don't contain tobacco so I thought it's better to stop there and then say new sentence the term also includes products sold as a tobacco substitute as defined in 7BSA 1001-8 and then use the e-liquid language instead of including any liquids whether negative based or not so e-liquids as defined in 7BSA 1001-9 and delivery devices sold separately for use with a tobacco substitute or e-liquid the tax department suggested that or e-liquid part and then the existing law goes on to say but shall not include cigarettes, little cigars or your own tobacco snuff or new smokeless tobacco as defined in this section then we had that report a study and report directive to the attorney general's office by December 1 the office of the attorney general would report to various committees including this one regarding weather and to what extent Vermont may legally restrict advertising and regulate the content of labels you talked about adding last time for electronic cigarettes and other vaping related products in this state and then finally the effective date as introduced would take the bill would take effect on passage I don't know if that works for you or if you want to set it makes sense to set a date certain so there's predictability for the retailers yes I think the latter we've done that previously I think we'll just have to talk about that so there you go your short belts are going to potentially 20 pages first of all thank you so much for going through and doing this is a huge amount of work and I we appreciate it helps us think and I don't know if you know the whole committee but we're I need senior introductions earlier that's good okay that's great so a lot of this is being suggested as a new to the bill and there are there's the one specific area that's the 10-09 whether we should keep that section or not and then the rest of it so why don't we let you introduce yourself and then go ahead sure again my name is Scott I'm the Director of the Office of Compliance and Enforcement for the Vermont Department of Liquor and Watery my office does have the enforcement authority of the department to enforce all of our laws and regulations regarding tobacco products germane discussion today we also oversee alcohol and water small elements of gambling the opportunity to speak to the proposal I also appreciate Ms. Carey's work to align a lot of the definitions we operated a little bit in some nebulous areas between what the tax definition were of these products and what our Title VII definition was so we certainly appreciate the between the two codes there in regards to 10-09 right so let's find that again it's on page page 12 I didn't see okay we are on 10 10-09 Title, Chapter 10 okay and then the band and seizure so talk us through this and then suggestion I guess I do believe that the verbiage as proposed is important to amend Title VII to allow that authority particularly when we talk about abandoning a substance it becomes very challenging enforcement wise if we don't necessarily have the authority to seize those contraband products historically we've relied on the tax Title, Title 32 to because they had this linear verbiage on our authority to seize contraband so 10-09 as proposed we would be fully in support of amending that statute to include these e-liquid definitions a new definition we were luckily not faced with any of the opportunities proposed by the current statute but we did contemplate what it would mean if we were asked to seize a tobacco substitute but not necessarily seize only liquid form the Title VII definitions that it now tends to identify the device in particular and not necessarily the substances that go into the device so by adding the definition of this e-liquid it certainly extends that authority to seize that contraband should the band pass okay questions on that well I guess what happens to them once they're seized are you a commissioner? director go ahead what happens to them once they're seized they're warehouse in our evidence room 13th Green Mountain Drive on a rolling basis we destroy them by fire we incinerate them unless they're part of an ongoing criminal case when we have to retain those evidence we seize and in case it's adjudicated we destroy them any other questions do you have any comments to make on the packaging piece the child troop packaging piece which is 1012 my understanding of 1012 was always I always understood that to be a provision to protect health in terms of child access to these products I'm certainly not a doctor but my knowledge and experience has told me that nicotine in liquid form has a certain toxicity to the human body and that the child resistant packaging provisions were intended to protect public health I see no reason why the adding of the e-liquids wouldn't be pertinent to that same public health viewpoint although it is important to mention that the definition of e-liquids as proposed here would include things not including nicotine things also like CBD would potentially be included into this definition as it is baked things like THC bearing concentrates would be included and therefore would be required to have this child resistant packaging if it met that definition I'm not testifying if that's a negative I'm just trying to bring that to the attention of the public all right so we'll have to put that into our decision making is there anything else here from your perspective the only thing I would bring up is just to make the community aware my office includes 14 investigators and as I mentioned earlier we handle the regulation and oversight of both alcohol, tobacco and watery and some elements of gambling within the state I only bring this up in terms of resource management from my department this ban would certainly increase the scope and work of which my investigators do we have around 7,000 active licenses across the state which 14 investigators operate in three key programs one being a comprehensive minor compliance program where we send minors into these establishments to try and purchase underage testing the compliance with the statutes in regards to access to minors second would be a regulatory inspection model where we enter these establishments and ensure that they're compliant with all laws and regulations and third would be investigations and those would be things like complaints from the public regarding violations of law or regulation this certainly adds another layer of enforcement in terms of ensuring particularly with a flavor ban that many of these products wouldn't be on the shelves I only bring that up to say that's a little bit of a challenge for us resource-wise we found means to enforce these access laws in the past the last session passing the delivery sales ban we were fortunate to receive some grant funding from the health department to engage in some testing and compliance testing of adherence to the delivery sales ban but that is on a very small scale basis the delivery sales ban in particular is a wide universe of online retailers and these products and again 14 investigators with our mission set we are attempting to do the best we can and cover as much ground as we can we appreciate it the other question that's come up from time to time is tobacco 21 has now gone into effect for a couple of months the question is, have you seen do you have any data that shows an effect or not? I do, I'm pleased to announce and you'll see a report from my office at the end of this month which would be six months since passage our minor compliance program testing historically has shown in any six month period to show about 90% compliance meaning one out of ten compliance checks would result in the furnishing of tobacco products to a minor of last year in the passage of tobacco 21 we've seen almost 5% jump in our compliance so we are having far fewer sales of products to minors during our tobacco compliance testing since the passage of tobacco 21 wow, that's really amazing I've never seen anything more than 2% jump in any six month period and this is almost a 5% jump sorry, go ahead Senator I think retailers are sensitive to the passage of that I think they err further on the side of caution with the passage of tobacco 21 and trying to visually identify the age of the potential buyers and if they I think they are scrutinizing our minors much, much more than they had in the past sales to minors has dropped significantly but the youth risk behavior survey has shown an increase in utilization so tough I have no hard data on that but I would believe based on the surveys we've done with the health department funding for our online delivery sales ban I believe we've shifted access in a certain realm to online procurement and anything else we need to know I just commented that we have the guy in here from Brattleboro that just moved across the river so they just if he sells the tanks but there will be other ones but he's just moved across the river so it's so the sales are weaker and we have seen a decline in our number of license tobacco licenses issue year after year when I first started with the department about six years ago we were generally over a thousand license active licenses in the state I do believe the last metric I saw we just dip below nine license this okay thank you very much for being here after working with us I'm sure that well it's possible that you'll be going into economic development to look at this with them so thank you and if anything else comes up that you think we should know about please don't hesitate to communicate with us send Doria note Jenna note and we'll try to work together thank you it's nice to meet you