 Vermont PBS in cooperation with Orca Media and the Vermont Press Bureau presents Capital Beat, the Week in Review from the Vermont State House. Here's host Neil Goswami. Welcome everyone to Capital Beat. We're very happy to have you with us this week. I'm Neil Goswami with the Vermont Press Bureau. Earlier this week the House was scheduled to vote on a marijuana legalization bill. And late in the afternoon it was pulled off the floor by House leaders. Apparently because it lacked enough votes to pass. To talk about the developments in the legalization effort this week is Representative Tristan Tolino, the Assistant Majority Leader of the House, and Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, a longtime proponent of cannabis reform here in Vermont. So my thanks to both of you for being here. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Representative Tolino, as I mentioned, this bill, H170, would have legalized the possession of one ounce of dry marijuana, the possession and cultivation of two mature marijuana plants and four immature plants. Everyone thought it was coming to the floor this past week and it appeared that it had the votes to pass. It was cleared out of committee. What happened on Tuesday with the count? Well, so it did come to the floor. It did come to the floor, we should say, before it was pulled back. So it did actually make it there. It was one of those things where I think you've probably seen this in the observer in the building, and I'm sure David has seen it many times. Sometimes it's the moment when something breaks out onto the floor in public that is the moment that people finally reconcile themselves to where they are. And more than anything, I think people, as we got closer and closer that day, there was just enough questions that people had in their minds that while I think we could have gone ahead with the plan, that it wouldn't have been fair to our caucus, it wouldn't have been fair to the individuals who were wrestling with something. And I'll say sort of at a higher level, and this is on reflection, not something that reflects a conversation that was part of the decision-making, but sort of on a higher level, I think that many people treated this particular vote as a last stand or as a watershed moment in where we are in the state in our conversation about what we're going to do or not to adapt to really what is happening all around us, around the changes in policy from marijuana use. And so I think that that settled into people in a way that it hadn't, frankly, in our conversations prior and they went home, over the weekend they went home knowing that this was coming up and I think people settled into that question in a different way and needed the time and space to work through what the implications were. And our move was buying our members that time and space and more than anything else. So your position for people who don't know is referred to as the whip in House leadership. Yes. And that means you're responsible for counting votes. Yes. And at some point, presumably, you had enough votes to pass this on the floor. Was there, what was it that made some members a little bit queasy when it came time to voting and what caused you? Was there one particular thing that made you pull this back from the floor? Somewhere absent. Well, yeah. So I mean that was part of the equation was we had several absences, some that we knew about, some we didn't. And when you're talking about complex social change, which is what we are talking about, and what I would argue is a very modest level, and I think David would agree with that. We'll get to him in a moment. You know, just teething it up for him. You know, this particular bill itself was a relatively modest one, but as it grew in importance as a proxy for a larger conversation, a larger social change, it took on new weight. And so I think more than anything, really that's what was in people's minds and in a new way. So yes, it is my job to have the count, and I had a count that was, you know, a fair count. We've seen with other complex social change issues as opposed to just sort of policy or budgets and numbers that sometimes it can come down to one vote. And I think we were in a range where I don't think we wouldn't necessarily have lost, but what would the cost have been to our body, to the members who were feeling really anxious very quickly, coming to that sort of place of anxiety and was that the fair are the right thing to do for them. And the pause gives them a chance to breathe and evaluate where they are. And I hope that we, after that space, that we find that we have a path forward. You know, again, I think it's a very modest bill and I think it's an appropriate step. And we should tell viewers it did come to the floor before debate really began. A motion was made to send it to the Human Services Committee in the House and have a more broad conversation about prevention efforts among youth here in Vermont. Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman. Sure. You have been, as I said, a very long-time proponent of marijuana legalization, cannabis reform in general. This had to be a disappointing moment for you, I would think, having worked so many years toward this point. Sure. It was disappointing, but having served many of the last 20 years in this building, I didn't let it sink me to an all-time low in any way. This building constantly has ups and downs, particularly on issues that are larger policy shifts from a no to a yes versus an adjustment to what we do. We adjust a lot of things every year in this building and people are comfortable with worker laws or environmental laws. We make adjustments to them and there are still debates and ups and downs on those, but it isn't quite a, you know, this is a terrible evil. You know, this is your brain on drugs frying in a pan a la Nancy Reagan in the 1980s to, oh, now we're realizing that there's been 70 or 80 years of inaccurate propaganda around what this substance does and doesn't do, and shifting over that is a big cultural shift. And so it's going to have its ups and downs. What I tend to reflect on and tend when I'm talking with legislators about this issue and some of their nervousness about it in their districts, I point out I don't think anybody in the state in campaigning this last cycle was tagged more with this issue. Sometimes I brought it on myself. Other times I was talking about rural economic development or health care or childcare and other things that people would still say, he's the pot candidate. Right. Well, clearly voters didn't then decide, this is the number one issue that I'm going to decide on and I'm going to vote against this person because they're, you know, proposing changing our cannabis laws in a far more significant way than what the house has even proposed, frankly. And that's sometimes given them some comfort. There was one representative yesterday I was talking to who has an avid opponent in his district who ran against him. Well, he got 400 more votes than that person. He got 200 more votes than he did. And I said, if this was such an anchor of your voter's minds, I wouldn't have done as well. So you have to have these conversations with people and they have to realize that and look around also at Massachusetts, Maine at 90% of the places where this has been brought up for initiative, the citizens are for it. And that the situation has really changed. Canada to our north, Massachusetts to our south, Maine not that far to our east, all are moving forward. Right. And so the question is, are we now going to suffer sort of the consequences and the lack of benefits because there's both of those things involved by not moving forward or are we going to be proactive and make sure that we actually address this issue in a reasonable management way because not managing it, you know, this is a bigger picture topic, but not managing it has clearly failed. People have unlimited access and, you know, so. I want to get your take, both of your takes on this, but we have Republican Governor Phil Scott who says he not necessarily had no, just stayed not right now because he has road safety concerns. Democratic House Speaker Mitzi Johnson has been on the record saying she's really lukewarm about legalization at this point. Will it take a united front among our political leaders to finally move this marijuana reform issue across the finish line? I don't know. Whoever wants to go first on this. Go ahead. I can. So I've always felt that if we think the public supports something, then we should move forward with it. And if there's a point in the political process where it's stopped by one, three or five individuals, then those one, three or five individuals can explain their reasoning and the public can decide. I think the more information we have for the public, the more bills we vote on yes or no and let the public decide if that's a general direction they want this building to go in, the better. I've encouraged in the past on some issues I've worked on, votes when we didn't quite have the votes. And this is a similar type of topic. I think we actually do have the votes, but issues like this where constituents either assume their legislators already on board or not, or where constituents sometimes feel a little bit yoked to also calling and speaking out. You know, if you're a teacher right now, are you going to write a letter to the editor if your personal belief is this should be legal and regulated and that would be better for our youth as well. But then your local community where you teach say I don't want that person teaching in my school or a doctor. Oh my God. This person thinks we should have it legal. It doesn't mean they smoke. It doesn't mean they want to use it, but it means they think it's a better way to manage it. So you actually have far, you've got sort of a hindrance to people calling and speaking out or writing letters to the editor. So there's a lot of challenges there. Yeah. Representative Toledo, do you think we need some sort of united front among political leaders? No, actually. I think that this is a situation where just as the weight of this decision forced our members to kind of view, to think and reflect and talk to people in a new way as it got close, I think frankly the same thing would be true for the governor that if the House and the Senate agree on this and put this question in front of the governor, that the weight of that question for the governor will be both all of the stuff that we've dealt with but also politically it's a totally different question for a single seat office holder facing a referendum every two years on leadership. That calculation becomes very different and we know that the polling numbers are good on this issue. We know that if Vermonters choose to make this an issue in a statewide campaign or local campaigns, that in general that this question tends to favor moving towards a legal framework, either retail or at least the very least this approach. So I think that the weight of that would be very interesting to see what he would do. And I don't think that the only way to get there is to have him step out in front and say, I am now ready to do this, please send it to me. And with respect to the Speaker of the House, I think in this particular case the Speaker was extremely deferential to the work of the House and said I'm lukewarm, this isn't a priority for me but was not afraid to take the moment when the moment came because of the interest and will of our members and when those same members then needed more time to give them space. And I think that she's been consistent throughout where she's not leading to stop, she's not leading the charge, but she's allowing that process to continue. And I want to add briefly, when Tristan says our members, I don't want to completely speak for you, but the our members is the whole body. He's the whip of the Democratic caucus. But there are Republicans that support this bill, there are actually some Republicans that don't support this bill and support a more complete tax and regulation. And that's through a both party. So this is an issue that is not a party driven bill. And I think that's important because so many times the way people think politics is, is the party in power makes things happen and the party in the minority stops it. And we're very fortunate Vermont, we often have work from people on all parties working on issues, doesn't always look that way, but it actually is. And I would like to just clarify, because sometimes I think that's, thank you for that clarifying comment because I think sometimes I can refer to our members as the members of my caucus, that I am in charge of whipping, and sometimes to the whole body. And certainly when I think, when Mitzi as speaker of the House looks at it, it's that our members is the whole body. And the conversations that we were having were with the whole body. And I knew that there was a tripartisan support and independent support in favor of this bill in my conversations. And it did cross party lines. Whatever outcome we eventually have will cross party lines. Yeah. I want to get into the politics of pot because I think it's just intriguing, really intriguing. We know from Vermont public radio polls in recent years that a majority of Vermonters in these polls indicate they favor legalization in Vermont. How you get there is really where this gets quite interesting. Last year we saw the Senate pass a tax and regulate model that really failed spectacularly in the House. 150 members I think it got about 25 votes. Yeah. So from my perch in the balcony with the rest of the media, what I see is you have a group of members in the general assembly at large who are adamantly opposed to legalization. You have another group who believe in the incremental step of the Washington DC model, which the House has under consideration now, which is removing the criminal penalties from marijuana and legalizing small amounts. And then there's a third group that would like to see a full blown retail ticket that is taxed and regulated. And moving those three things around to find the perfect sweet spot has been the challenge. Is it possible, we'll start with you Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman, is it possible to shuffle the deck in such a way that there is a sweet spot and a majority of the general assembly will come together on this? Well, I have a sweet spot. I'd like to see it come to you, whether that's the sweet spot or not. And you've introduced legislation when I was in the Senate. I introduced S95 a couple of years ago that had unlimited grow licenses, limited retail stores, so you wouldn't have six stores in a row, downtown Main Street in any town. And they couldn't be vertically integrated. And one of the reasons for unlimited grow licenses was that a lot of small licenses afford both current producers to become legal and legitimate and pay their taxes that right now they're not. And it would create competition which would bring the price down. In Colorado and Washington, the price in the underground market has dropped by about a third, which is one of the goals, is to reduce the underground market, reduce access for youth to be developing relationships with drug dealers. And it had a home-grow component. Last year's bill that came out of the Senate which made some people think well this is just going to be 50 corporate wealthy people that are going to get the licenses, even though they weren't particularly large, which caused a couple of problems for me. One was it doesn't produce enough and they're going to run out. Alaska, for instance, ran out and therefore you don't undercut the underground market if your stores have to close. And so more licenses is important, but the home-grow portion was also missing from last year's bill and there were people that were frustrated by that. So the sweet spot would actually be to take the house's peanut butter and the Senate's chocolate and make a Reese's Cup out of it and have both. And for now, I would just like to see the house move beyond no. And what's curious is there are members in the house that want the Senate version and they're voting no and of course working to convince them you're never going to get any much farther if you don't move something out of the house because the ball is in the house's court. They want to change the system. The house has not been able to even indicate that. And others in the house who thought would think if this means we're going to get a tax and regulate, I don't want to vote yes, I don't want it to advance at all. So it's a very interesting moving dynamic. And I think that conversation is going to continue, but what's changed from last year in a big way, the house has now had the conversation. The house has had committees look at this. Last year the Senate bill came over and there was no groundwork done. The soil hadn't been prepped to use a farming metaphor, which I like to do. And Massachusetts, Maine and Canada hadn't moved where they are. So the dynamic is radically different just this one year later in many, many ways. You probably know better than most at this point the tricky dynamics of this. Do you believe it's possible to find that sweet spot? Well, so I mean clearly I believed very recently that we had already found it for at least to move forward in the conversation and I think we may, you know, I think there's a chance we'll find it again as we review the committee work in human services. But sort of the larger picture question here is certainly a challenge. And I think there tends to be perceptions about how this process works and often those are maybe more myths than reality and I think that what I see many members the House is so intimately connected to their communities. I mean I think that that's the starting point for the House. We have districts that are small enough that we know many, truly know personally many of our constituents and what tends to happen with social change and this is social change in my opinion more than it is policy is you talk to the people who are in your peer groups and even as a politician it's hard to disrupt your rhythms when you're home to find the people who aren't normally used to talking to you the teacher who doesn't want to tell you that I would like you to legalize POT because I'm a teacher and I can't say that publicly. So if you're not able, if there's no mechanism for you to get that feedback the feedback you get is the people who are like you and if you're reluctant unsure of a different generation and there's a huge generational divide in the statistics on this the people that you're going to talk to are probably reflecting your anxieties that you're already feeling and I will say and I won't identify who but I spoke to one advocate immediately after our move who said well what should I say should I throw everybody out and I said no I said but let's be clear the political will of Vermonters has not yet found a way to influence the political will of the members of the House and that is the challenge of the people who are advocating for social change to create that pressure on us in the House and because there's when I said there's lots of myths about the way things work well one of the things that people undervalue is how much outside pressure from our constituents actually can help really open up conversations and willingness to absorb information and data and there's really also some significant problems around the data that people are using to have this conversation and that's also an external to our building problem that the public at large need help understanding what is true and what is not true and so if somebody says this H170 bill that's very incremental and small is going to mirror Colorado's harms that's totally unreasonable because Colorado went legal they had a huge medical system that was essentially its own it was basically a gray market they went with edibles early they had edibles that were marketed towards kids they didn't have anything remotely like what we're currently where we are we should note that those Colorado was done through a ballot initiative this wasn't lawmakers sitting down trying to find that sweet spot this was and I believe we would be the first there's good lessons from Colorado in Washington that the edibles that look like kids candy our medical system is far more constrained so that has much less opportunity to create that gray market that Representative Tolino talked about so we have a real opportunity through the legislative process that all of those initiatives didn't there that's up or down right if everything works or not that's too bad up or down and then figure it out and we're trying to sort of say like we're going to figure out something reasonable well and we're going to have to go through the political process to get there and I think that's a strength of Vermont and we we should take pride in that even though in the moment it can be very frustrating and I hope that the narrative in Vermont is not you know the house is failed spectacularly this week but rather that we continue just we need to have this statewide conversation about how we achieve change and how Vermonter's opinions filter through our political system. In recently the Vermonter's opinions if I could add something last summer it's kind of interesting where I heard about it the most was not in sort of liberal towns when I was campaigning to support it or saying yay Dave I'm glad you're supporting that it was actually the parade in downtown Barry and downtown Rutland it was working class Vermonter's now they weren't necessarily hooting and hollering about 170 that wasn't drafted they they were yelling out legalize it tax it you know stop taxing me these people there's a whole economy that's not being taxed bring the economy in now there's pros and cons to that argument but you don't normally think of some of the working class folks who sometimes also vote for Trump or Phil Scott to be the ones that would be supporting this but the hybrid of public support that's out there is really curious sometimes it's folks are a little more isolated or protective of their children in lots of ways who say this is bad because my kids are going to get it and they're kind of have their heads in a pillow because every youth I talked to says easier to get marijuana than it is to get alcohol so you hear that a lot so it's actually kind of a reverse of who you think would be supporting it's not necessarily that was our Easter conversation last year at the Easter table I have an 18 year old and a 15 year old in high school in Brattleboro and this issue was hot on the last year at this time as well and I said if I gave you some money and I said go get me weed how long would it take you and my 18 year old was like 10 minutes and I said well if I asked you to go get you said I don't know who I'd ask that's a big thing this bill now goes to human services chaired by Representative Ann Pugh of South Burlington she and her committee now whether they want it or not become the focal point here of the of the debate I've got about two minutes left but I want to find out number one what are they looking at and number two how long of a process do you think this takes for them to review it and and make all of the members feel more comfortable that youth prevention is being addressed so we have a calendar problem which is that we're in the middle of our money bill week so we're really not going to do anything this week I think probably tomorrow there'll be some conversations around what is possible next week in terms of the committee time and what questions need to be addressed you mentioned road safety is one of the governor's concerns and and prevention clearly is another concern what I will say having been privy to a lot more of this work over the last few weeks and the membership at large a lot of work has been done in judiciary in in transportation committee work you know to evaluate the answers to those questions and to address sort of strategic questions about how we do better prevention efforts how we do the transportation system in a sense I think that the human services work is to is to help elevate the work of the other committees that's already been done and make that information more broadly known to the caucus because as people headed into that moment without they didn't feel that they were as solid in that information as they needed to be I think they will find more has been done than they realized and that there's more reason to let human services take a couple looks at the prevention piece and then move forward and that's my hope I mean I'm not giving you a whip count because I haven't talked to people about that conversation yet but that's my hope and so the big question will this get to a vote on the House floor this year I think that will depend on the comfort level of the members as we look at this and and that question has yet to be answered and and certainly that's the speaker has been very clear that this would be this would emerge out of the will of our body and not be forced on people and if we find that that we can sort of reestablish that clear majority vote then yeah I think it will and if we can't then it will probably wait and and we'll come back next year and see if things have changed and again this week there are three people not there who are yes votes when you're talking about a close vote that also can make the difference so I actually think the votes are there but I think it's important to take a couple days to again give people that comfort and then bring it on back so you're feeling still encouraged that we're making progress oh yeah I mean I've seen lots of bills move faster and slower at various times there's you know six weeks left you know if they can work this out over the next week or so there's time to still get something moving okay well it sounds like this is a conversation to be continued my thanks to Representative Tolino and Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman especially to Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman for bringing the cookies today and welcome to my office yes thank you and my thanks to the viewers on behalf of Orca Media and Vermont PBS we hope you join you'll join us again next week thank you