 This is James Pepper chair of the Cannabis Control Board. Today is June 17th 2021. It's currently 9 30 so I'll call this meeting to order. I have a few administrative details to go over before we move to our agenda. First the governor has lifted the emergency order and so all the leniency that was provided to government bodies during the state of emergency related to the open meeting laws has also been lifted. We tried to secure a physical location for this meeting in order to comply with the open meeting laws. The logistics really just did not come together on the short notice. We don't have a physical building quite yet. So starting next week our plan is to continue to hold these remote meetings but we will work with BGS to have a physical meeting location for whoever wants to show up and will have at least one board member present at that location. So we will update our website as well as the Department of Libraries website with that location as soon as we have it. Second while we are still technically holding special meetings we are going to be working on adopting a regular meeting schedule. That being said we intend to in the interim continue to hold meetings at this time in this place and likely you know with the physical meeting location soon to be announced. So Thursday is roughly 9 to 2 or 9 30 to 2. For the next few weeks while we're kind of waiting for our executive director to come on board and our consultant we're going to do some of this similar fact-finding around the priorities that we've identified in Acts 164 and 62. Last week we heard some very thought provoking and thoughtful testimony from small growers business owners members of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition and others about the barriers to entry that will prevent them from participating in a regulated market. This week we're doing some initial orientation to social equity and economic empowerment. Next week we are we'd like to focus on the viability long-term viability of the medical use program including how we as a board can ensure access quality and affordability in that program. We'd like to move to youth prevention and education next and then probably the following week will do sustainability and energy and environmental impacts and opportunities in the cultivation and processing of cannabis. I'd like to note just now that in particularly to the people who have not been invited to speak to us or have more that they would like to say that all of these topics that we're talking about early on are really too important and too nuanced for a single meeting or even just a three-person board to fully grasp. These initial conversations are really meant to orient us at a high level to the priorities of Act 164 and 62 and the concerns of stakeholders and others that these bills present. So our plan is to do an extensive stakeholder engagement process likely through our advisory panel and subcommittees and the rulemaking process and we'll start that kind of a little bit later in the summer once we have our executive director and consultant in place to help direct us. That being said if anyone watching has thoughts for us or articles that we should be reading witnesses that we should be hearing from please continue to provide public comment. You can also submit comments through our website at ccb.vermont.gov. You can sign up for our press alerts and to the extent possible please just continue to join our meetings watch them and pass them along to anyone who might be willing to lend us a helping hand or help guide us. So with those kind of just initial administrative details I'd like to move to the agenda. We have made one small edit to the draft minutes that were posted on our website but with that change I'd entertain a motion to approve the minutes. I'll move to approve the minutes from the June 10th meeting. Right thanks. A second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay and now I'm going to move just to a quick discussion of our request for services we published a request for services last Friday on our website and really what that does is details the areas of expertise and the scope of work that we feel that we need to supplement our knowledge base and that of our advisory committee. So very high level very briefly what we're looking for is someone to help us develop social equity programs including criteria for social equity applicant conduct a market analysis including tax and fee projections help us facilitate and direct our advisory committee and the subcommittees that we form help us develop energy efficiency standards grant groundwater considerations sustainability and kind of conservation measures help us develop a retail framework including specialty licenses potentially help us with some of the recommendations that we need to make around potency limits concentrates craft market farm to consumer sales etc. And then services related to our medical use program. So some of the initial comments that I've heard from people that are interested is this is of course a lot of work for anyone consultant to tackle particularly given the budget that we have for this. But it does sound like we have a few interested applicants. I should note that we are to the greatest extent possible going to be relying on stakeholders and our advisory committee and the expertise that they bring to the table to get this job done. But we do feel like we need a consultant to help guide the process. So the application period is open. It's open until June 25th and hopefully at our July 1st meeting we'll be able to select a finalist. So that's the RFP update. We do have next on our agenda we're running I guess pretty far ahead of schedule. Unless any does Kyle Julie do you want to add to any of this. I might just quickly say that that James Julie and I certainly recognize that there's a lot of potential content there for a contractor or a somebody interested in working with us to come back and try and hit all of those bullet points that are in the suggested scope of services portion of the document especially for the dollar figure that we're working with. But what we decided to do is kind of put out every kind of area that we thought in addition to other resources that we have at our disposal. You know what we feel like we could really utilize a consultant with and we're hoping we understand that it's going to be hard to hit all those points. But from a consultant's expertise how do they best feel like they could help us recognizing that certain things the wheel doesn't need to be reinvented for certain portions of what we're trying to accomplish. But things need to be right sized for a state like Vermont understanding the rural nature of what we're trying to do and how we're trying to make sure we're we're learning lessons both good and bad from other states that have really taken a leap into a regulated market. So we get it. It's it's a lot to swallow. And but we're excited to see what proposals do come back. Yeah I think the only thing I would add to that is that you know as Kyle was saying with the and Chair Pepper were saying about the the amount of work that's involved in this you know I think we recognize that we need to find some folks that can bring the national perspective and the market research to us to help complement the great information that we're getting from members of the public and people who are here in Vermont are already part of this process. Yeah that's that's that's absolutely right. I think you know we heard last week that we need a uniquely Vermont marketplace and I think we need some help getting there and that's going to be a combination of our consultant and the stakeholders in our advisory panel and our own kind of departments of agriculture you know public service etc. So it's going to be a collaboration and there's certain aspects of our request for services. Just like you said Kyle that our need to be custom to Vermont and certain aspects that I think we can look to other states and try and at least learn what they've done and use some of their guidance. So I think if there's nothing more on the request for services we'll of course have an update next week on that but maybe we should just take a moment to open for public comment. So we've been doing this kind of in two phases. First phase would be anyone who is joined through the link could just raise their virtual hands and we'll try and go in the order that the hands are raised and then for those folks who might be on the phone just to wait until I kind of open things up to people on the phone. And again I don't see anyone on the phone but if if someone joins you hit star six to unmute yourself. So if anyone in the who's joined through the link has a public comment please feel free to just raise your virtual hands. I know it's a little early in the morning to get called on but let's give it just another minute or so. So I have David Templeman first and then Graham second. So David if you would mind just unmuting. Can you see what's going on here. Can you hear me. I can hear you I think you may have flipped your camera. But. Yes. Good morning I just wanted to take this moment to thank you all the last meeting was really amazing to to have you all actually listen to other people with my own concerns and acknowledge them. And you know coming from California there is no forum like that and I think we are in a very privileged and special place here to be able to have this conversation at all. And I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Graham did you want to unmute. The only thing I just wanted to say I'll just come back in a second public comment period right now and I'll see you this little later I know but thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to provide a public comment at this point and I would just remind everyone that what we're trying to do is to have more public comment kind of woven throughout the agenda so that people can respond to things that they're hearing in in more real time than just kind of one public comment period at the end. And I don't see anyone on the phone so I guess I'll skip that but I guess maybe it might be good now just to give a little primer about what we're going to be talking about today with our witnesses. Of course you know when we did our walkthrough of Act 164 and Act 62 with some of the lead sponsors of those of those bills it was very clear of course that you know trying to bring in as many of the small cultivators and people that are currently growing into a regulated framework is one of the key tent poles of the legislation. And the other one that is very explicit in Act 62 particularly is about social equity economic empowerment and trying to repair to the extent possible some of the harms that we've seen over the past any number of decades with respect to the war on drugs selective policing redlining and all the kind of collateral consequences that come with criminal history records. It's not certainly I've said before and I will say again no amount of cannabis policy alone that the board can do is going to correct those kind of second third and fourth order effects. But that's not to say that we there aren't things that we can do to help deemphasize the use of criminal history records to provide tools assistance capital to social equity applicants people that have been disproportionately harmed and really to kind of take a strategic think thinking on how we define social equity applicant. We heard from Susanna Davis early on and we're going to continue to hear from her and learn from her and learn about how we can promote equity in all of our decision making. So today we're really going to hear we're very fortunate that we have such a great witness list today to hear not just about equity in Vermont from some of the people that have been fighting this fight for decades I mean specifically on cannabis policy for at least half a decade and some some people that have been disproportionately impacted by criminal history records and have really felt the collateral consequences of those and then also from some national experts that have done some great thinking about how do you define social equity applicant what's worked what hasn't worked and how we can kind of embrace what I would call on what's being well what's being called social equity 2.0. And so Julie really put together the witness list for today which is just phenomenal and I'd like to you know we're going to take a break but I'd like to just turn things over to you Julie briefly if you kind of want to give just a little bit of a primer on the kind of agenda for today. Sure I think it it's worth pointing out that President Nixon announced the war on drugs 50 years ago today so perhaps it's our proposal that we're having this discussion today and it's taken 50 years to get to this point where we're you know looking at reducing those harms in earnest both on a state and local level and on a national level so in in terms of building the witness list today you know as Chair Pepper said we've reached out to some folks who are local who have experience personal experience to share in the criminal justice system and how it's impacted their lives and then also one person who did quite a bit of advocacy work in the legislature for the social equity programs that will be building. And then later in the afternoon we have some folks who've done some national work that can share with us some lessons learned in other states. And the the idea behind this is it's you know the very beginning of a much longer conversation of things that will you know equity will touch every piece of you know this legislation and every piece of the rules and program that we build. So this is the first of many conversations and we tried to bring in a variety of voices and we'll continue to do that. That's great thank you for that and the historical perspective as well. Kyle is there anything you'd like to add you know we can get in touch with Mark and see if maybe he's willing to join us a little bit early. Nellie maybe you could maybe you could do that. But is there anything you'd like to add before we take a kind of brief break and get ready for all witnesses. I think I think you both covered it. I think it's it's going to be a very important discussion today. I'm excited to hear from folks from a different couple of perspectives in the state of Vermont. Those that have been fighting this fight. Those that have had previous convictions for marijuana related issues in their past and hearing nationally how you know how some states and advocacy groups have really tried to make social equity front and center to a lot of these programs and the shortcomings associated with that. Chair Pepper I did see Graham's hand go back up during your remarks. I don't know if he tried or if his daughter may have afforded him the ability to provide a comment. But I know we're in this little waiting game. It might be appropriate to see if Graham is. I don't want to put Graham on the spot. If he still has a comment and he's in a position to to be heard I would suggest that we listen to him. Graham if this is a good time to chime in please or if anyone else would like to provide some public comment please feel free to raise your virtual hand. Sure thank you. This is Graham the director from rural Vermont and I didn't want to distract from the focus of the meeting today on racial equity but given that we were just at the beginning you were speaking about the RFP and some of the other stuff. I wanted to specifically speak I was looking at the description to the RFP and I understand it's sort of written within the balance that you all were given you know in terms of some statute it refers to for example the the zoning issues we spoke to last week and how you're sort of confined to to cannabis being considered commercially zoned. You mentioned the current use allowance of 1,000 square feet. I guess I would just encourage you knowing that you also have the ability to make recommendations of legislature to change statute to perhaps you know make that RFP a little more broad such that it could for example analyze the access and affordability differences between commercially zoned land and agricultural or residential land zoning etc etc. such that you have information to to make reasonable recommendations to the board beyond what that could could could push back against some of the things that are in statute which may serve as significant equity barriers whether from an economic perspective or from a racial perspective. So that's my comment before we really get into the racial equity piece here. But thank you all very much. Yeah and if if I may quickly respond to Graham thank you certainly appreciate that. If you kind of I've been working in the RFP world unfortunately or fortunately I guess the way you you know want to look at it and drafting these things and selecting contractors and going ironing out a statement of work you know there's a couple different phases where you have an opportunity to really drill into what the specifics are going to be that a contractor would service us with. So there's you know there's that as you outline Graham is not in a in the suggested scope of work and perhaps that wasn't. We overlooked or I overlooked that and taking a stab at drafting this but if it's something that we feel is is important we can certainly make up for it through a more detailed statement of work once a contractor is selected. So thank you. Any other public comments from anyone in the audience. Okay well why don't we take a break. We're scheduled to come back at 10 20. I think I might be able to get Mark to join us a little bit early but if if not we'll come back at 10 20 but otherwise we'll just kind of stick to our agenda as it is. So thank you Nellie. Could you just throw up our away message and maybe just pause the recording for us. So Mark I just I know you're there if you're ready I would just like to just say a few introductory remarks about you if you don't mind. I don't want to embarrass you. And I'm just still trying to get things figured out here but by the time you get finished I should be okay. I'm actually in a shared space and I'm trying to figure some things out but I am I am prepared. Thank you. Okay great well this is Mark Hughes' first time in front of the Cannabis Control Board which is we're very fortunate to have him here. Mark is the co-founder of Justice for All. He's a member of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition. He's the original co-chair of the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice advisory panel. He's been fighting what I would consider a great kind of emotional cost for equity not just on in cannabis policy but across all social systems for as long as I've known him. He's been a seminal voice on my understanding of systemic racism and white supremacy. And I think despite some of the shortcomings of Act 164 and Act 62 there was a reorientation of those two bills away from some of the purely public safety or consumer safety priorities to a more social equity focus that likely would not have happened without Mark's consistent advocacy and that really is not meant to deemphasize all of the voices that were calling for change but I just wanted to acknowledge some of Mark's contributions. Julie again you put together the witness list for today so I'm going to hand things over to you to manage and but just really grateful for Mark to be here today and I'll turn things over to you Julie. Sure it looks like Mark is still getting a little set up. So just to kind of reiterate there was you know Act 164 didn't fully address social equity and then Act 62 has really four or five points that are specific to social equity around fees around reporting back to the legislature and a few other things. So are you ready Mark. You're muted. Sorry about that. That's OK. I'm going to start I'm going to start without video and I'll come back. So I just want to thank because I'm just in the interest of time I want to keep things moving for everybody okay. Sure. So so thank I want to thank the the the board itself you know for you know the way in the manner in which you've come together in the sense of urgency to the extent that you have been able to move forward. I also want to just give like a shout out to just the just all of the folks that are behind the scene that a lot of folks don't see that are doing this work and I know it's really super exciting for a lot of folks and I know sometimes what it seems like is is that there's like a flying ointment and you got folks that are trying to slow things down or maybe they don't appreciate the the magnitude of what it is that's actually happening because perhaps they haven't been around in this space. I know Chair Pepper has been around has been has had some extensive experience in this space over the years of some of the others. I know I've seen a lot of folks who come and testify. Also and I know that this is sensitive because it's about money and when folks start talking about money everybody gets crazy. So I just wanted to just you know especially shout out to each one of the board members whom I actually had the opportunity to speak with offline. I appreciate that. The other thing I wanted to do was just acknowledge the legislature as well. Which you know it hasn't been you know it's been a pretty bumpy road with the legislature and every you know there's no denying that and I know that all of them you know whether it's Dick Sears or Jeanette White or John Gannon or Sarah Copeland Hans is or whoever it is we're talking about I'm sure that they would agree that this has been a bumpy ride and we haven't always agreed and and I still don't agree with some of the things that we came to conclusions on. So but at the same time I respect the time and effort that they put into it and the engagement with them was formidable and I do appreciate that. I'm the executive director of the of the racial equity the racial justice foundation but I'm also I'm also a the founder and the principal of the racial equity association which is a DEI consulting firm. I didn't have enough things to do so I figured out I'd do some other stuff. And also what I started to do in my off time is is I figured out what go ahead and start a cannabis company. And it's it's called it's called the cannabis partners for my cannabis partners. It's it's a company in name only but I believe in full transparency in the work that I'm doing. And I think it's important that you know before this body that that type of information is available. I think I found some power and I can show myself now you have no idea just what it takes to get to make these things happen in the background. I want to I just want to offer a few words and before I check in Mr. Chairman I also wanted to just I wanted to verify first of all has the I get the sense that there is an executive director of this body. We announced last last meeting that we're going to be hiring Bryn Hare as our executive director. OK OK so I just I thought I heard a rumor or something like that so I didn't want to move too far into the into the conversation without acknowledging Bryn Hare who I know in deeply respect and who has been instrumental in much of the work that we brought to the table not just in the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel working act 54 of 2017 but was also present and available in much of the other work that we're doing that we've been doing and I'm sure if we haven't seen her on the forefront in the committees that she's definitely been busy down there in the dungeon. So I know that there's there's a lot of work that she's put into this and I think I really appreciate and respect that you know that that that Bryn is being offered the opportunity to have the gig. And so that's that's just great news. So congratulations director Hare. Thank you. I wanted to just tell you like the perspective that I'm going to be speaking from because more than anything I wanted to talk from the perspective of the Vermont the the cannabis equity coalition in stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues that have already come before you I know that they've already kind of glazed over or I should say glanced over some of the stuff related to racial equity in particular. I know that some of us have various all members of the board have had conversations with us collectively and or me individually about matters concerning equity. I know that you have all had the opportunity to review H414 which was our proposal for racial equity in the policy. And I think that it's it's safe to say that there was an attempt by the legislature to incorporate some aspect of what it is that we were doing. I think it would be it would I think it would be robbery if I didn't you know speak on racial equity in the cannabis industry from a broader perspective and really talk about some of the broader work that we're doing. So here's what I'm going to do is I want to talk just a little bit more broadly then I want to circle come back in and talk about equity here in this particular market from the perspective of the you know this is the within the context of our coalition the Vermont cannabis equity coalition. But however I do want to speak specifically for you know as the executive director of the racial justice alliance from that context then then what I'd like to do is stop for a minute and take my hat off and tell you kind of how I'm feeling as a guy who's you know who's looking at potentially entering this market. A you know an African-American man here in Vermont who has in name only registered with the Secretary of State in that is all and is looking at this market and saying well this is a this looks like a good opportunity what do I do now. I don't know what to do. So from the broader perspective before I go on I'm noting the time right now that it is 10 30. And I believe that I was scheduled to speak for about 30 minutes but I want to just do a quick check in on that and because I do not need to go for 30 minutes but I could go for the next 2 hours. So so I just want to check with with with you Julie on that. Yeah so I think you have a little bit of time Mark. We did have one witness that was supposed to appear between you and the the next witness that wasn't able to make it and we've asked the other ones if they can come a little early although I do not see them yet in the meeting. So I think I think you can probably plan to talk for a little bit. Okay I appreciate that and just so you don't get dizzy I'll just tell you I'm going to just turn around a little bit because this is the shared space and just in the event that somebody else joins as I don't I want to just respect their privacy if they walk in the building. So thank you for that and I would just assume that we may be OK until maybe about 11 or something like that if and I would like to do is in the you know is is instead of talking at you for the next 30 minutes I would love to have a conversation with the with the board. I'd love to hear from you and answer any questions and perhaps just more importantly walk away better understanding your your perspectives. So I could you know because I think part of part of this is is I view it as a conversation and also view it as an opportunity for me to learn. And that'll be something that will be kind of a recurring theme in this entire conversation on cannabis because I think that's what a lot of people are looking for is an opportunity to learn. And I think you know with that you know obviously you're going to hear you're going to hear you're going to hear that there's a lot of folks that just don't have access to capital. You're going to hear that a lot of folks don't have access to land. But I just want to flag that you also want to hear that there's a knowledge deficit that the infrastructure is just doesn't exist to be able to ramp folks up at the warp speed that this is moving at to ramp folks who are disproportionately impacted up to really to get proper footing so they can walk in pace with what's going on so they can have the same types of opportunities. So we talk more about that before before I talk about that what I would share with you though is is that we've you know there are there's some significant challenges that we are that were that we're facing as as a state as a and as a country you know as it pertains to this whole idea of racial inequities. For those who have not noticed now in the wake of the global pandemic which laid bare these disparities across all determinants all social determinants and has impacted black and brown people first and worst across just all of these areas then for those who did not notice then I'm not talking to you because this is a this is another conversation and I don't know that you have the capacity to actually hear what I'm trying to tell you but for those who did notice what has been occurring here over the last 15 months and indeed 402 years is that there is a there is a disparity that exists that's being produced by this thing that we call in some ignore systemic racism and I think that that's the frame that I come to the conversation with now I'll qualify what I'm some of the things I'm going to say is because I cannot speak I cannot speak emphatically or in a very well informed manner about all of the things being marijuana all of the things being and if you find that term offensive then think about why but all of these things I don't I don't I don't have the ability to effectively speak towards constructing a market or have the ability to speak towards all of the ins and outs and there's a reason why and and I think that many folks who are black and brown could probably say the same thing but what I can tell you about this is I can tell you about systemic racism and how I'm in in some way or another it would seem to me as if the an emerging market like this would be impacted it would be impacted I think I think the best best best place to start is is just where a chair chair pepper started was is just talking about some of the work that we we've been working in because the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel that was created what also came out of that panel was the Attorney General's and the Human Rights Commission's task force that provided report on disparities across all systems of state government and what does that mean what it what it really means is is is that simply the Attorney General T.J. Donovan at the time and the Human Rights Commission Executive Director Karen White at the time produced a report I think David sure actually ran and carried the water but there was a report that was produced that just you know laid it out laid it bare and and and talked about the all of the impacts and it talked about the need for this this state to to to lean in and actually take this kind of work seriously so that's where that's what created the impetus for us to come back the following year with S-281 and then Senator Debbie Ingram introduced S-281 and through that through one veto and a return in the special session we were able to bring across the finish line policy that would create the position of the Racial Equity Executive Director. Though we did feel that the Executive Director should have been an independent position and we still do we also feel that there should be some some obligatory and compelling language in that Title III that actually causes state agencies that actually obliges state agents to adhere to data collection policy and training but that's another conversation. We also thought that maybe there should have been I don't know maybe about five million dollars or so to create a data infrastructure to support the race to disaggregated racially data across racial data across all state systems instead of kicking the can down the road on data that's just related to the criminal justice system. All of this is related the reason why it's related is because we've been doing the work yes H-210 came over to finish line which is the health equity bill the economic empowerment bill did not the home and land ownership bill did not. So there's a lot of things that didn't happen things that are crucially important. We also don't feel that we've made significant progress with this policy here with this with this cannabis equity policy. I think the relationship here is is that there is there you know there is there is a severe disconnect in you know in you know this whole idea of you know what does economic opportunity look like for black and brown folks. In fact what I would share with you is is that indeed the median wealth of a black family is one-thirteenth that of a white family and that's that's pre-COVID and that was that was growing at that time. These I think I think all of these facts are relevant when we start talking about considering rules when we start talking about considering how we we fully I fully expect that our coalition will be going back to the to the legislature. I think that they were largely leaning on you to take the lead in the creation of some of these rules. I think definitely definitions when it comes to definitions as it pertains to you know those all those things concerning you know those who are disproportionately impacted definitions concerning you know what these you know you know how do we define us the the challenge that we're trying to address. I you know it was disappointing it was highly frustrating that you know I feel as I was talked in a circle in in you know in in the legislature I think largely in judiciary probably in gov ops and senate you know because you know somehow or another there's this sense of amnesia that has occurred in some of our legislators who seem to have forgotten how this nation has gotten on its economic footing and how it is how it could be that you know in terms of race and class that most black people are poor despite the fact that most poor people are white and the fact that the this was created by policy of this nation by by by federal policy and by state policy of this nation is the reason why these disparities exist today the reason why 39.4 percent 39.4 k is the median household income for black folks in vermont while 50 while 63.7 k is the median household income for white folks in vermont which is why the unemployment rate for black folks is at 4.4 while that for whites is 3.5 which is why today uh 25.9 percent of vermont black population is at below the poverty line what i said is over a quarter of black folks in vermont um they live below the poverty line whereas um what we see is is that number is around 10 for white people and we know that 24.4 percent of black vermont homeowners there are 24 percent of blacks who own homes in vermont whereas 72 percent nearly three quarters of the homeowners in vermont of whites in vermont own homes and this is significant not to say that any of these these other things that i was saying is not but whereas despite the fact i beg your pardon whereas 0.2 percent whereas 0.2 percent of vermont farms are owned by blacks 0.2 percent of vermont farms are owned by blacks and 99.7 are owned uh by whites 52.2 percent of blacks are are vaccinated whereas 61 percent 61.5 are vaccinated 37 and a half percent of vermont third graders are um proficient they are proficient in the english language where where over half of the whites are and the list goes on and on um and so the question is is not so much um is this a coincidence or is this you know how could it be that all these things go together the question is is you know how do we connect this to our and contextualize this to to the to our historical context of who we are as a state and who we are as a nation now some would say that what i came to do is is to give you some critical race theory or something like that um but you know i think um really what i came what i came to do is is to connect the true history of who we are as a nation and who we are as a state to the empirical data that lays before us in the context of an emerging market and ask you to take that into consideration as we're creating these rules and as we're creating this structure and as we're grounding everything and centering everything that you do as uh as a as a board that's all i really came to ask you i could leave now i mean that's pretty much what i just came to ask you um and because i i do believe that inherently the manner in which this this whole contraption has been contrived up until this point has been informed by the very mess that i'm telling you about right now okay and i have zero confidence in the current trajectory of it i don't current i don't mind telling you that unless something changes in the decision-making process it it processes in terms of how this thing is rolled out now you can decide to just do the same old thing and you'll probably be held accountable very little because those who stand a profit are largely already affluent white men because that's if you look across the nation that how that's how it's already proven itself to be um and we don't really have the political power to necessarily hold you accountable in numbers or empower not not not so much um i think i think there are some of you who would care to be on the right side of history and i think there are despite what many others might say i think there is a a strong moral compass that's on this this this pant this board um to include the recently appointed director uh so what i'd like to do is is um you know share with you just some thoughts some brief thoughts uh from you know the perspective of the alliance and the coalition rather you know grounded in some of the work that the alliance has done and just so you know 414 what you would have saw in 414 is the vast majority a lot of the same language some of it hasn't emerged transparently but a lot of the language that you've seen from my ag colleagues matty and graham uh josh uh jeffrey a lot of the language that you've seen from my colleagues would have been in h414 i'm not going to get into the politics and the procedural um jockeying and maneuvering that precluded that from occurring but you could only imagine being close to and in and out of the state house how these things have a tendency of working themselves out and it probably would also explain why this thing is still on the wall in gov ops and was hardly even in house gov ops and was hardly even taking consideration when s25 arrived in fact it wasn't um i did want to um take a couple of minutes and and just step through h414 not in detail at all there's a few things there was four major points that i saw in 414 that i wanted to bring to your attention really quickly one is there's a lot there's a lot of time spent on definition um if you were to go over on page five of 20 you see things like social equity applicants um uh four of 20 qualified social equity applicants the legislature did not did not had a political will or the intestinal fortitude they call it time uh they said they didn't have the time to actually get this done so they kicked it to you uh so i wonder uh if we might be able to have some and i'm i'm leading all of this to somewhere and let me just tell you where it's going just in case you cut me off is is that um you know i really believe that there there should be some type of racial equity or social equity um standing advisory committee to the work that you're doing in fact it might even you may even need i i think in order to truly guide the work that you're doing effectively that you may even you may even have some kind of director or something like that or or someone who has sole responsibility for keeping their eye on the ball with this thing because for some odd reason every time we start talking about money everybody gets all goofy and they take their eye off the ball and everything goes sideways and then by the time we know it the same people end up getting rich by golly i don't know why that keeps happening um and i think that you know if we're going to really have you know roll this thing out with an i on equity again we should roll every market out with an i on equity okay i think the the significance of this market is is the harm that this weed has done uh and and it's and when you think about the harm i need you to think generational harm because so long throughout this process i've had white people looking at me saying well did you go to jail or did well who went to jail well did they get out of jail do you understand what it means what a person in your family is incarcerated and how that affects generationally folks and not just that person or that family but when you have a large demographic of folks in a certain when you have a large group of folks in a certain demographic population how that even impacts who they are the damage um please note the kerner report if you will you know in terms of the fact that this is not a black problem this is a white problem because you know systems of oppression have been using the criminal justice system to oppress black people since whenever so i wanted so i just wanted to just urge you that you know um when you start talking about creating process and the work that you're doing then hold yourself accountable and put somebody in place to kind of oversee that susana davis is not that person why uh the reason why is because she's a political appointee she works for the governor yeah she's got some great ideas she got some great attested fortitude eloquent and a great friend but still a political appointee who works for the governor and she does not speak for our community she probably is consistent with some of the things that we believe but just because she's a black face and she has that name don't pull her in your committees and say susana said we can do it so we're we're heading down that road especially because that's just what you want to do anyway like the legislators often do so i'm going to pause there for a minute and then i'll go through those other three things i wanted to tell you already told you where i was taking you um but there was like three there were there were four things about 414 that i wanted to share with you and then i'll i'll sing you a sad song about the company that i'm trying to start uh is there are there any questions or comments so far so i have a couple of questions mark chair pepper if it's okay if i just start absolutely and i just lost my train of thought oh so one of the things that we've talked about or talked about in one of our first meetings was a subcommittee of the advisory committee and our committee that would look at racial equity so that's one piece that maybe doesn't fully achieve your goal of a you know of a a racial equity committee or advisory committee but is is you know sort of along the same lines in the same thought process so that's one um thing i wanted to mention and then i had a question about in 414 um it talks about you all recommended a definition for social equity applicant and one of those uh pieces of that definition is the 51 percent ownership but what i understand is that in some states there has been um you know companies that come in in a predatory nature and try to convince someone to um be that 51 ownership or to sign on to something so i i want to know how to prevent that in vermont or what your thoughts are about that happening in other states um and taking advantage of people um in order to get that social equity applicant designation um but really in its predatory and taking advantage of people can you talk to that a little bit a little bit yeah i mean i the short story is i don't have the i i don't have the answers to that um but but you know it does occur to me that is not unlike um you know challenges or issues that have existed in other markets or in other situations i i don't think we need to i don't think we're like making this new wheel um to that extent um there are plenty of markets where there are plenty of situations to where there is um you know as far as control we're talking because really what we're talking about at the basics of this conversation is control of a company uh in trying to demonstrate that there is a person that has a vested interest in a community or a state or whatever uh to uh to prove that control uh and you know obviously that may go into residency that may go into you know there's a lot of different directions that could go it could be time you know how how long of you can you prove you know who's the agent there's there's i could take that um and run with it but i won't uh because i think that um you know respectfully i just think that you know that's that's the low hang that's the easy ones though those are the easy ones in my personal opinion frankly um and i think that um yeah i think i i would be more than happy to um you know return to that conversation with you at some point when it seems appropriate um but i do believe that you know that's low hanging fruit and and we can we can get after it okay mark i've got a uh i got a question for you but it's not related to h414 um it's more i'm just noting the time and i just want to make sure i hear from you on some of these more foundational questions uh what how should we as a board define success when it comes to social equity and economic empowerment i mean is it just you know we've been given our authority we have this limited authority should we define success as a board just as cannabis license ownership or is there something else that we can look to um you know given our authority and to kind of achieve those promises of social equity and economic empowerment yeah yeah i think we should define success together i think that's how we should define success i think that i'm i think that there are there are you know folks folks who are representative you know and i don't i don't speak for all black and brown folks in the community and in this who are leaning leaning into this market or who are interested in this market i'm sure there's some who will probably diametrically oppose me on some of the things that i'm saying today and that's okay um because they need to be heard as well but we do however we define this we need to do it together and i think that that means that the board shouldn't do about themselves and that means that they shouldn't just put the weight on the community the black and brown and poor community to do so either i so i but i do think that those those those um goals or those um you know though those success those key performance indicators along the way or whatever all of that looks like i do believe that they would be emerging i think that what we're doing is overwhelming i think that you know we have to i i do believe we need to take some baby steps and right now we're running at a full sprint um you know i just i just want to flag the fact that you know when when things are important to folks with political and economic power especially those who are affluent who have controlled and everything there is a sense of urgency uh but when things are important to black and brown and poor people who have a sense of urgency to achieve some type of economic goal or something like that then those with uh political and economic power have a tendency to slow things down right now what it looks like that things are on full tilt running real fast and i think you know this pepper because we've talked personally uh is is that you know some these and some other questions i hope we get a chance to slow some things down and talk about um you know we know we can't we don't want to delay going to market because that's just that's not even i would be dumb to show up talking like that but somehow or another we got to figure out how we get our heads around some of this stuff surrounding equity i hope that answers your question it does and it also addresses my follow-up question as well about you know when you move quickly when we is a three-member board you know all white board move quickly we unfortunately have to rely on our mental shortcuts aka our unconscious biases um and uh i just you know i talked we talked to susanna davis when she was here a few weeks ago about how we can try and short circuit those and not entrench them in our rules in our um application processes and um you know there's no great answer of course but uh i think you know it weighs on me pretty heavily about this kind of Nate the kind of what you described the the desire to move quickly versus the desire to not entrench some of uh the kind of systemic biases that we've seen in our work especially early on and that's not really a question but i'll turn things over to i'll turn things back over to julie can i ask one question mark thanks so much for for being here i wanted to get back to i was wondering where you were oh i'm here don't worry um i wanted to get back to some of the the the great data that you provided us a little bit ago and i say great because it's quantitative and not anecdotal because the disproportionate nature of it and it's certainly disheartening um so i don't want you to think that i think that the actual numbers are great um you mentioned two point and i don't want to make sure i got this clear a point two percent of vermont land are owned by people of color or black people and 97 or 99.7 percent is owned by white people was it land what that means is that's percent of vermont farms okay farms because i wanted to i was wondering if it was all all types of zoned land in the state whether that's residential commercial zone for agricultural use um and i'm and obviously this is a i know we're running short on time and i don't want to belabor of certain points as we try and crack this commercial versus agricultural conundrum and nut for a lot of small cultivators at least in the state you know i'm wondering about barriers to entry and buying agricultural use land for people of color versus commercial you know buying commercial businesses or commercial land for folks and of folks of color and where we kind of shake out what what i i want to be conscientious of that as we try and potentially make recommendations to the legislature around the agricultural versus commercial you know concept and so if you have any kind of more data that i can sink my teeth into as we start to think about how to go about addressing some of those issues that would be very helpful absolutely it's good to see you in that that that those data are noted on our website if you go out to our website under data that's vt racial justice alliance dot or go under data tab cruise down there where you find that stat and you'll find a link out to 2017 census of agriculture agriculture so that you can unpack that data there regarding your second point or the i guess the extension of your comments surrounding you know commercial what we know about commercial land is just more expensive what we know you know about wealth is it's passed down through housing and land some of these things that you know we've got you know we've got the you know empirical data some of these things you know we have to make certain assumptions and in fact it not only would be unwise but it would be almost um it would be almost hypocritical it would be almost um derelict for us to not make certain conclusions in the absence of some of these data um you know it's kind of like saying well um systemic racism it exists everywhere except for here which is ridiculous because by definition if it exists anywhere it exists everywhere so we do so we do have to make certain assumptions however it's not necessary that we make bold assumptions um what we do know is is when we start talking about poverty rates that those data are those data are available and we start talking about wealth rates those data are available it doesn't take a leap of logic to understand the trends the intergenerational wealth and and where that landed along racial lines um so I think that you know what we're unpacking here is is yes we're unpacking a problem that was that was related to cannabis but this it's a much broader challenge and it's not that we need to fix everything with this market but we certainly want to acknowledge everything as we roll this market out acknowledge its impact to not do so is somehow or another to suggest that we can just look at where we are today and forget about everything all the way back to 1865 or 1619 for that matter and not try to and not reconcile what we're doing today with the historical context in which we exist this is this is the challenge of rolling this market out okay and and to to do so again I'll say again it's derelict um three three three additional point I hope well before I go on does that help that certainly helps thank you I'm very familiar with the with the ag census and I think all of this data is going to be important obviously no matter where a person of color chooses to enter this marketplace whether it's as a a grower where the ag versus commercial question will really be um something I want to pay close attention to but there's other opportunities and more of the strictly commercial context for a person of color to enter this marketplace we hope and recognizing the balance with which we're working in I just want to make sure we understand barriers and how we can work to address such barriers you know depending on on the tools that we have so thank you yeah it looks like my time is about up but I will just um you know there's a there's a maybe a couple high level points I can hit on the way out the door is in 414 um you know we were we were definitely looking at definitions one of the things that that we were looking at was is you know what does you know what is this this whole business of and this is one of the things that we were looking at in in s25 compliment 124 uh was the cannabis equity programs we know that um the cannabis development fund is is one of the things that did actually stick um we don't know how that program is going to be funded beyond the first year um I don't know if you know I mean I'd love to hear it um it you know so there's that and then of course the third the third thing we were looking at the other thing was is a community social equity program and that was something that was completely taken off the table we won't really go too much into that and then um then finally when we started looking at integration integrated licenses uh you know and how we were would be able to rely on the integrated licenses to be able to to do some really innovative and creative things and five really one uh was is to um to further fund the program uh that's the social equity program two was to offer education because again you know give me land give me money but if I don't know anything where am I going uh what do I mean by education that is the you know fund of Vermont Community College get a program up get some folks in there reentry is the third one uh an incubator space incentivizing uh these integrated businesses to create their own incubator space to be able to turn folks out into the market even allow them to get up to 10 percent um on a stake in that business as they turn it out and then the last one is a loan program that allow businesses to to to loan money uh to um to loan money to uh upcoming those thriving businesses those reaching back and pulling forward those businesses that were up and coming so essentially that was that was 414 in my estimation you know with the richness in you know and as well as the um thoroughness of what that policy was seeking to achieve as opposed to what we actually receive you know I think it's like more like night and day uh hopefully there's something that you can do uh to address that finally uh I would say um again you know I am a um I'm a business owner too uh I own I own nonprofits you know I I mean I own a LLC I own you know I I also I'm starting another LLC with this with this particular market I am exploring the possibility of entering the market uh and it doesn't look incredibly hopeful at this point um because I don't really you know I mean I I am somewhat privileged uh you know because you know I do understand some of the moving parts I don't understand the market really well um I would up I would almost feel guilty um take advantage of the knowledge that I do know understanding that there are some some people that are out there who don't have access the type of access that I have quite frankly I'm just being really honest with you about it um I think I could maybe I could figure it out I don't have money to do this I don't have land um and um I'm not really heavily confident in the ACCD and I would just conclude by telling you that you know there was uh half a million dollars that was kicked over to the ACCD uh year effective the beginning of June uh and yeah we're looking for dispensaries to kick in another I think $50,000 each that's all it sounds like it's all one time money uh it doesn't look like any of it is recurring uh further within the ACCD evidenced by the manner in which the ACCD has administered BIPOC small businesses administered grants loans programming technical assistance and the lot and the whole lot the the track record that they have frankly sucks so the reason why we got what is it FS 159 that just came just came across and this summer study or whatever it is where that $100,000 was set aside for folks to put out to contract for folks to come in and and bid on a contract to create some type of apparatus that would begin the process of getting their arms around what a black owned business is and how the ACCD is able to support them because we're at that level of capability maturity with the ACCD to put that $500,000 over at the ACCD right now and say that hey help the cannabis industry with black and brown folks be blessed be gone goodbye is ridiculous so um so I think you know we need to really take a close look at the so-called um bone that was thrown to us in this particular session regarding the use of the ACCD to administer $500,000 in a program that faces black and brown folks that's broke or I should say is working fine because maybe it was never designed to do what it is we're trying to get done here can I ask you about that mark um there thank you we I just have one question on that piece in particular I mean we have a little bit of latitude um using our authority to help define social equity applicant um I know ACCD is ultimately going to be the one who's administering the the fund but um where where did the definition we're going to be hearing from some national folks that have spent a lot of time thinking about what's worked in other states and fundamentally what has not worked because it seems like most things have not worked um but I'm curious where the definition in in 414 you all um I assume had some some say over uh that around um what social equity applicant impacted areas impacted families etc it was that from Oakland like I just did a quick google search and it looks like it was from potentially Oakland but I'm trying to think like uh you know that's where we can try to we can try to kind of use our authority to to kind of help direct ACCD and and have a good definition for who actually can access that money however limited that money actually is yeah thank you for that mr chair I think um you know I think there there is a synthesis that has occurred here in this policy I can't rightfully say exactly but I will say that it was heavily influenced by Illinois Illinois it was heavily influenced by Illinois uh it it made some some some of it may have bled over from other jurisdictions and and I think we tried to um massage this language to try to comport it to uh who we are uh in the state of Vermont and I I don't know how close we came to doing that I hope that helps no it does help and and that will help kind of guide us in a later half of this conversation with the you know the the folks from Massachusetts uh you know Shalene Tidal and uh Bo Kilmer about how those programs you know in Illinois and others have actually worked and in actually delivering on some of these promises so absolutely and as far as the rules process is concerned you know I'm again I think part of what we're doing here is a lot of uncharted territory for those of us who represent um some of these black and brown communities and just even maybe there I think they're even you know I would even speak for members of our coalition we're not really familiar with that process I know it's steeped uh in um it's steeped in in white supremacy the whole rulemaking process and I say that unapologetically you know so um maybe that's the reason why it's you know part of it is such a secret to everybody uh you know I have a list of other processes that are governmental that I'll share with you in another presentation but one of the things that um concerns us is is that you know we want this process you know to be informed to be continuously to be consistently informed in centered centered in and informed by those who are the least of us so hopefully this is not a one shot my hope uh Mr. Chair and and I'm bored uh as you know I sense that it's it's time it's time for me to go but as my hope is is that we'll we'll have an ongoing our entire coalition will have an ongoing dialogue with you we're not looking for any special privilege or anything we appreciate the opportunity to speak into this body I appreciate your service these are challenging issues that we're working with but I think that I hope that everybody from our coalition has shown a willingness to work with you and has been you know forthcoming with any information that they have and has has been willing also to reach out even into our own networks and pull other folks to the table for expanded conversations we are open to hearing from other folks who we do not represent who have differing opinions we understand that you have a synthesis to perform and we have you know complete confidence that you do it we just want to make sure that you have all the information that you need to do it we understand that the outcome is probably not going to be quite the way we like it to be we know how sausage is made um so again um thank you so much uh for the time I did this afternoon and thank you so much uh for the work that you've taken on I would not want your job but I appreciate the fact that you've you've all three signed up to do it and again congratulations to the executive director I think that's probably the best choice we could have made in the entire state can I ask you one more question mark about going back to what you said? Come on that's not enough! Is that your mic drop? That's something important but I didn't want to interrupt you so you talked about sort of like the you know the supremacy and systemic nature of like the rule making process and how it for a lot of people it feels sort of shrouded in mystery um what is the best way for us to communicate out when we're going to make rules or when we start to the to the point where we make real big decisions so that we can get we can get the influence of the public and people who might not normally go to our website to look for an agenda and so forth how what would you recommend that we do? Julie I am really sorry but I'm going to ask you if you can restate your question because I'm I'm just I'm not able to follow it exactly um so I guess what is the best way for us to communicate out in your opinion when we're going to start rule making to encourage people to comment because there is a public comment process piece of that how do we encourage people to join us for that part? I see I see what you're saying I think that um yeah I if it was just that easy I I everything here's what we're working with in in in this is this is part of what you're going to see in our um our outreach efforts in turning the curve on systemic racism um building back a healthy of Vermont as we begin to teach people um a common a shared definition of systemic racism and also to be able to know it when they see it because nobody you know it's kind of like that justice is that well I don't know what pornography is but I know if I saw it I'd know it you know or something like that so so these very systems that you're talking about you know whether it is the the public outreach process you know name a title name you know a group of black and brown and poor disabled or folks challenged with language who who are you know who are supposed to be involved in a public process uh and and an entity or state agency is being paid uh for that participation but they can never seem to figure out how to reach that public that particular demographic but yet and still they they realize appreciate and benefit from the the actual um revenue that comes in or people that look like them okay so they're so I think this is much more complicated uh I think you know it's borderline consultancy uh I'd love to come in and get paid for what you're asking me um but I think um the short story is is is that you know whether it is the public engagement process whether it is the appointment process um you know whether it is a um a process that seeks to uh that dictates a this um when you say communications your communications your public your um the fact that the two that two of you cannot talk at the same time um what do you call that process it's this um open meeting open meeting laws open meeting laws though those process your your executive your executive sessions you know we are everything you know our our whole system is steeped in such a way to itself itself healing itself protecting itself preserving uh so we have to have a broader conversation about how to disrupt that you know and I can go on with a list of other things uh that feed into this process and you are a part of it uh so what I'm trying to do is I'm just trying to help as best I can um but as far as how to go about uh breaking down some of those barriers uh in in opening the door up and getting some light in so we can actually really make some progress um I think that that is a broader conversation that would um that would be um that would I think it would need to start at the executive range that would be a Susanna Davis conversation fair enough so so I have a couple comments and they're not necessarily questions for you mark so I'll let you leave on your on your mic on your mic drop um thank you so much okay well I was just gonna comment um just very very um quickly on the rulemaking process I totally understand and respect that it's it's nauseating for a lot of folks in the public world to understand uh wins the best time to provide input how do I provide input do I need an attorney to formalize a document for me to actually provide input and I would just say and maybe this is a topic that we can schedule a meeting around some time when we're a little bit further down the road to make sure folks understand um and you know not without setting any any specific expectations but you know if if we put out a proposed rule I mean there's administrative techniques to kind of short circuit the traditional rulemaking process I don't really anticipate any of that really happening here often that's done for for timing purposes more so than a public input purposes and I'll say that recognizing that some agencies at the federal and state level do it for other reasons like trying to limit public input um James Julian I don't think are trying to limit public input by any stretch of the imagination uh but you know we're gonna have to respond to each unique comment that is presented to us as it relates to proposed rule um so on and so forth I mean the key word there is you unique and that's just you know we can talk about that word and what it means from a legal perspective a little bit further down the road but we're gonna have to respond to a comment on why we chose to make a decision one way or another that's that's part of this process so what I'm trying to say is even if a comment wasn't incorporated into what we're trying to do we're still going to be on the hook so to speak for helping the public understand why we went in a different direction so that's not rulemaking 101 that's just my experience with the process um based on my career I wanted to circle back to a couple things Mark said that I think are extremely important and I experienced them in my time at the agency of agriculture that really helped a lot of folks at various different levels um in and around the state and that's business incubators and business accelerators and borrowing some of those models from the ag sector where I've seen businesses graduate from an incubator level to an accelerator level to get out of those types of shared spaces sink themselves into their community and actually find success at the state and federal level with whatever product they're selling we need to figure out a way to bring a lot of those types of concepts to the cannabis community I believe and that was a topic that I was trying to start on tangling that ball of yarn with some of our business and technical providers um at our meeting last week education is super important here in understanding how we can leverage as you mentioned Mark community colleges maybe VTC other other institutions that might be willing to um you know help folks learn um not just the business end of things but learn how you know this is going to work um end of things as well so thank you for touching upon those points very briefly um it's really important is is this where I sign off I'm sorry say it one more time I said is this where I sign off yeah like I said there are more there are more comments than questions for you so yeah I appreciate it Kyle uh James uh Julie again um and in all of y'all who are doing the work I appreciate you I really I want to I want to work uh with this in this process and I want to you know get other folks more importantly I want to get other folks who are interested in this process engage so for those who are watching maybe now or folks who might I don't know that this is going to be available on the site uh you know reach out to the racial justice alliance vtracialjusticealliance.org if you want to somehow or another get plugged into this process to help um you know to help stand this thing up you know again I I know that their that industry and others are coming at y'all with rules already you guys are they come they probably came with some kind of baked in alec flavor flavor type of pre pre uh you know blah blah blah again you know the folks who are running circles around us out there you know what everybody else knows they're running circles around us yeah well all we get is we get this little snippet but you're getting a constant fee from these folks who do this for a living I don't do cannabis for a living this is just one you know probably one half of one percent of what I do with the racial justice alliance we don't even do policy for a living that's probably about 20 percent of what we do as an alliance so I mean we we need you guys to fight for the little guys we need you guys to push back on the guys that are big guys that are coming in that are flooding you with stuff every day and you know they are mark yeah can I just respond to that quickly just uh because what you do know whether it's cannabis policy or not is that if we want to do something bold and something outside of the normal kind of cookie cutter approach um we need a coalition behind us we need you know everything we do uh has to be approved in one way or the other by the legislature um either you know directly or indirectly um and so we need that we need those voices calling their legislators and and helping us craft the the rules and so I know you know that better than anyone but I just wanted to just make that kind of the last the last word on that because it absolutely mr chair and and I would also you know add to that you know that you know they could folks can feel free to reach out to info at btracialjusticealliance.org info at btracialjusticealliance.org you know if you are someone in your organization somebody you know is interested in being a part of a Vermont equity Vermont cannabis equity coalition because we're also building power there we want to do that the only thing I push back on mr chair is is that you know there is a rulemaking process that you guys have that you have quite a bit of autonomy with yeah only that is not a legislative process that is an administrative process and we we know that we may not know a whole lot about it but I do think that a lot of the philosophy choose the dog park in the background it's not mine there's a lot of philosophy that we adopt in the principles that we choose to inherit can manifest themselves in rules so we we're calling on you as well we're gonna put you know it's good to pass the buck but we're I'm not gonna let you off that easy we're also gonna hold the body responsible as well and those are buzz in the community we're gonna bring the same type of accountability we're gonna ask for the same kind of accountability and we will bring also the same level of pressure if necessary on this body to get you to do the right thing because we're just fighting for people just trying to get we're fighting for the small guy it's all we're doing nobody's trying to get ahead here we're just trying to fight for a small guy so we're going to be asking you to do your job great thank you mark thank you thank you so much for the time I appreciate you all yeah thank you bye hi mark um do we know if Matt Leonetti is on the phone I don't I don't see his name in our list of attendees here if you are on the phone Matt um you press star six to unmute yourself okay great um Julie I'll turn things over to you sure Matt I'll let you um sort of introduce yourself and and and kind of give us your background but I think what you've offered to speak to us about today is about um you know your experience in the criminal justice system and how that has impacted you um and what you uh your thoughts on going forward okay uh sure I can I can speak to that can can you all hear me we can okay well thank you for having me and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to kind of share some perspectives on this I appreciate that considerably um I'm Matt Leonetti I am a convicted cannabis felon for a 98 bust out in Arizona from that point forward that conviction has been very difficult to kind of overcome especially in the early days because we did not have the sweeping legalization efforts early on that we're seeing now nationally uh so it's definitely been uh an uphill battle in certain instances uh you know to to kind of bring it to recent terms I think the last two episodes where I had to declare this where one I was teaching uh coaching uh rec soccer in Richmond uh I had to write something about why I did what I did uh what happened how I've come from that how I've moved forward uh same thing I'm the tree warden for the town of Richmond uh same thing when I applied for that position I had to give a whole expose to the select board and everything about my felony conviction which at this point you know we're we're pushing 20 years um so I am a convicted cannabis felon uh I do have a degree in plant science and horticulture uh I do run uh clean green here on the east coast which is the largest nationally recognized and the longest running certification body in the cannabis industry born in 2004 far ahead of any other programs um I own and run an award-winning landscape and design firm so I'm very well rooted in in agriculture horticulture I've run diversified organic farms I've been an advisor to the UVM farm uh so I am very well rooted in in agriculture I think that the difference that I carry is this this felony conviction in seeing the ugly side of of cannabis so you know I I lost everything um and you know I I I will say I was young and dumb at the time um I from that day forward I now have 23 years clean from heroin I turned my life around from that point forward I have two amazing beautiful kids uh but it's certainly not been easy getting over the stigma of of being a felon I was not allowed to go on a trip with my daughter to Canada because I am banned from Canada I am banned from South Korea uh I think something that happened 23 years ago especially for people that turn around and put their lives back together especially now that we're seeing legalization uh the one thing I would like to see is that for all nonviolent cannabis offenders everything is fully expunged and those people are pulled from prison and released uh there should not be a legal market while there are people still sitting in prison for this that does not seem equitable that does not seem just or fair so my biggest thing is I would love to see everyone have their records cleared off so that they can gainfully get employment and other things without having to explain the significance of their actions as we move forward with legalization and allow others to profit um you know how how we create and what sort of parameters we put forward to allow this I don't entirely know but I don't know if there's a way to use some of the tax revenue to create grants or loans training programs technical assistance for those in more impacted areas we have to give them a chance to get in I hate to bring up this term but I'm going to white privilege it seems this cannabis industry is dominated by white folks that have investors and other things and I don't see a lot of that within the minority communities and so I think as we move forward creating a framework that allows them to have an equitable footing getting into this you know financial assistance training loans those kind of things I think are going to be a huge way we can possibly help that or we do it in areas that were negatively impacted more so than than others so I'm not entirely sure if there's an opportunity for felons to get a reduced license cost other ways to kind of bring a lot of people out of the black market because I think that's what needs to happen somehow you guys are going to have to gain a lot of trust from from those of us and make it incentivized for us to come out and to move forward in this market and and again I'm not an expert I don't know exactly what all that looks like and entails but there has to be a level of trust on both sides moving forward and I know in talking to a lot of folks that are in this there still is you know I think a lot of people are waiting to see final language if they're going to jump in or not if it makes sense because a lot of people are pretty comfortable right where they are doing what they do I would love to be a part of of of this thing moving forward you know I think some things too that may accelerate and continue the black market I think our THC caps I think we are the only second state in the entire country that has those so when we look at something along those lines of you know five milligrams is the max for the older demographic sure that's great you know the 60 year old that wants to pop a teeny little edible to go to bed and help them but we have other folks that need higher higher counts to that and if those accounts don't exist in the legal market the black market will thrive in that arena and there are already amazing concentrate markers out there and removing those caps too it also allows the craft artisans to create the products that they're good at without having to dilute them just to meet an arbitrary number they don't want to take their bubble hash and dumb it down with CBD so again I think allowing them to do what they do best and I understand we could have some some limits but I think the limits are pretty stringent right now and pretty pretty out of line nationally with what we're seeing everywhere and I don't think we're seeing detrimental effects from higher THC edibles of course we're always going to have a little kid that gets it here and a little kid that gets it there those stories happen all the time same with pharmaceuticals we that's just kind of part of it but I do think the THC caps are going to foster if they stay in place a very large segment of the market being illicit and I don't see how we can have a legal market if we have a black market that is bigger and picks up pieces of parts of this and I think you know something that came out very recently which we're seeing in California California has made a lot of mistakes from the minute they passed prop 215 and 96 they are now walking it back and they're offering a hundred million dollars to help the legal market because it can't compete with the illegal market that's 75 percent of that state so if we want to move forward I think we have to find those ways to incentivize and get all of these people that want to be in it and that are good craft artisans and that are willing to put in the testing to make sure that their products are clean give them a chance give all of us a chance I think ultimately when I look at Vermont's bill seems a lot of it has been handed away to the five dispensary owners and that's what I look at in terms of corporate cannabis and it makes it very difficult for the small guys to get in and I know those guys are fighting tooth and nail with their lobbyists to make it very difficult for us where they should be encouraging people to grow at home and I think you know and taking this a step further if we can alter and amend the current medical program two plants and four plants is really really small especially if someone has an issue and makes a mistake it does happen this is agriculture pests and disease are all over the place I have done this for a very long time sometimes I hit the ball out of the park sometimes we absolutely fail and but when we're talking about someone's medicine that's on a fixed budget or an income that cannot afford to go to the dispensaries the home grow is the best option for them so I think home grows and amending the medical program will also allow the entire market to thrive so let's think about our medical patients and not just the tax revenue and the rec side of things these are people that need it far more than the rec market this is to you know quality of life so I would love to see the medical plant counts get changed I'd love to see the caregiver plant counts get changed more medical patients can take on more caregivers because of the potential for mistakes and I think you know I think that would would offer a big solution to a lot of people that the medical program really should stay in place but I think we can amend it and make it much better because the plant counts comparatively to all the other states we are at the bottom again and that's just not fair to some of these people that have been paying ridiculous prices for the last several years and I think you know that that's pretty much my spiel on social equity I'm not really sure where else to go with a lot of these things because I know a lot of states have put things in writing but they have not implemented these plans so seeing how some have not been implemented I don't know how they're entirely going to work I don't know how the tax revenue can fill into these things and so I'm sure this is probably more so in your wheelhouse but you know getting us felons and opportunity to get into this market because we were trailblazers or in my case just stupid and a young and doing something I probably shouldn't have done on that scale but what's done is done so I would really like to find a way to to get more of us out of this black market and into a market where we feel we have an equitable footing for the small guy because I feel we're up against some pretty big licenses right now and we don't get some of the things that they've gotten we've gotten virtually nothing in writing they've gotten everything and so we're all still kind of sitting here as question marks of where do we get land can we get land the tag land can does it all have to be commercial I mean there's just some un things that are just not clear to a lot of us yet and I know that's part of this process moving forward so I don't expect it all to be done but you know how do we get us felons into this market because we've been here a long time and we would love to I don't care to make money I just want to make people's quality life better and I'm pretty damn good at growing cannabis and I would like to have the opportunity to share that with people thank you Julie Julie yeah go ahead thanks for being here Matt I think we've got a lot to learn from you that goes far beyond this 20 minute conversation and I look forward to hearing more about your you know angles and pathways and your expertise through the cannabis marketplace moving forward you know we've heard a lot about THD caps and really having the medical program and that's something we're paying attention to and to one of your other points I think a lot of folks are kind of waiting and seeing what they're you know if they're going to be interested in the regulated market because they want to see action instead of just our words and I certainly appreciate that and we're very cognizant of that and I want to I want to turn back to you know and I'm sure it's never fun or easy for you to constantly have to revisit the impacts of your felony conviction but but hopefully you might uh you wouldn't mind indulging me for just a couple minutes so I'm thinking you know as we talk about social equity and a social equity application understanding all these compounded issues that are the result of your of your conviction you mentioned that you're a successful business owner in a couple different ways and I'm wondering from a mortgage perspective from a loan perspective from an access to capital perspective how has that conviction impacted your ability to just move a business forward you know separate from the cannabis specific expertise that you have how can a conviction like that follow you long 20 plus years after you know that actually happened uh you know it's really only followed me in that you know I am banned from Canada um and and I think that was probably more so that I was crossing the border for for 10 years after I moved up here they finally caught it I never knew I had to declare it I never knew that I wasn't allowed to go there they swiped my passport said don't come back here again you will be arrested this and that so I walked into something that I wasn't really sure of the the legal ramifications of my background because I didn't know international laws and moving from you know Arizona to here I loved going up to Montreal I loved going up to Quebec uh you know getting out of Vermont and seeing a little bit of it but I didn't know what Canada's laws were because partly they've got some things decriminalized over there and and legal over here so I didn't think that was so that was the biggest impact was crossing the borders I have been self-employed since I moved to Vermont so more so the employment thing has not really affected me because I could either hire or fire myself and say hey I'm not going to take you wait a minute it's me um ultimately it was simply just you know the tree warden uh because I wanted to give some time back to the town of Richmond that I live in I didn't think that to be the warden of the public right away for trees I would have to declare my my my felony to to run a rec soccer program I didn't think I would have to give an expose on the background of of everything after I have created um everything so I don't think it impacted any sort of loan process in any way um some of that was never asked when I did apply for loans through my business um it was just those few little things and then missing trips with the kids um you know sometimes I wouldn't apply for jobs when I thought I might want one only because I knew I'm gonna have to declare that thing and so again it's kind of that stigma of you know I feel bad I I don't feel bad for what I did because I felt I was taking care of people but ultimately in the eyes of the law that was uh not the case 23 years ago so the impact for me I think was a little more minimal ultimately because I've been self-employed my whole life so it hasn't hit me as hard but there were those few examples where I was kind of bummed that I couldn't go on my daughter's trip with her um little things like that the little memories that I'll never get back I'll never be able to share um yeah well thank you I mean all that factors kind of into how we're gonna start viewing these these impacts of a conviction like that whether it's shying away from applying to a job and maybe that's somewhere in this legal marketplace and I don't want folks with a an illicit background in cannabis that might have a conviction shying away from the regulated market strictly for that purpose and I think that's something that we're you know certainly going to be looking at and you know um it's much appreciated for you to share your story sure of course do you have any questions that you want to have um yeah I I've got a question that I'm gonna ask both Matt and Erica if you don't mind I mean Matt me by starting with you um under the statute Act 164 the board is required to obtain criminal history records of all applicants that have I think above a 10 ownership interest in any of our licenses um what we do is kind of up to us with the kind of one qualification that we need to determine whether the criminal history record or the applicant based on the criminal history record poses a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of the regulated market so those are the two kind of products we have to evaluate um how would you suggest we do that um like what you know you've got a cannabis conviction from 20 years ago I clearly to me that does not pose a policy threat or the proper functioning of regulated market but I think we need to get a little bit specific for the public about how we're going to evaluate those and I just would seek your advice um about those two points oh that's a good question uh I yeah I don't know how big this process is going to get I don't know how many licenses and things are going to come in I don't know how many backgrounds are going to need to be checked but I I honestly think you know if there is the opportunity to do it if it's a case by case basis because I think everything is so different and everything is so unique uh individually um I've never felt that mine has been that bad it was a nonviolent cannabis conviction for cultivation I've always said that you know I never thought the impact went far greater than me and I only hurt myself but when my parents got up and spoke at my sentencing hearing I felt that and I learned that the reach of my actions is far greater than myself uh so I needed to take my blinders off a little bit um again I think it would really come down to when did that conviction happen uh what has that person done uh to remediate that what have they done since has there been repeated infractions thereafter uh you know I think the story for for everyone should start at where that first conviction is where they have gone what they have done since uh I would assume violent convictions are probably immediately tossed out which I would certainly think so um you know that's a really tough one I think everyone's situation is very unique and I don't know if if if there is a a single set of standards that could be put to each I'm sure there certainly could be certain parameters that would be laid over over each person but uh I think you know just kind of very similar to having to give a spiel about myself uh for running a rec soccer league as well as being a tree warden allowed them to have a better understanding of me where I have come from who I am today and not who I was 23 years ago um I think would allow a little more personalization and an opportunity to get to know those people uh at their present state uh and see how that fits with the framework of the bill that you guys are are going to create for us um so I don't know if that really answered much but no it really is helpful um so thank you welcome yep do we have any other questions for mark no questions just from me from me matt I know that you've got a lot of other expertise as it relates to growing environmental considerations and I look forward to engaging you as as we move into that process to get a an understanding of where where you're thinking oh and I would love to have the opportunity to share that I've been in cannabis for a long time and I I think you know my partner very well Jesse when we are our very strong advocates of clean cannabis uh and testing and making sure that the products going out are safe so when the opportunity arises if there's an opportunity to hear me out and and some of the clean green framework I would love the opportunity to share all of that info as well at the at the proper time for sure thank you thank you for your time matt and um I really appreciate you sharing all of this with us I appreciate your time and taking to you know your time your valuable time as you navigate all this to actually listen to to me and to all the other small cultivators out there so greatly appreciate it for sure thank you thank you for your time thank you I think that Erica is here I am here Nellie is Erica able to oh there is she able to turn her camera on she should be able to yes very good there she is okay when I hit on it says it's off and when I hit off it says it's on can you all hear me yes we can hear you okay so I'm trying to turn it on okay I can see myself in the bottom corner of the screen okay got it we see you good great Pepper did you want to start uh sure um so Erica thanks for joining us um you and I met you know virtually very briefly we were both testifying on an expungement bill and your story was very compelling and your openness and frankness about it was very compelling to me personally and um you know I don't know how you feel about cannabis policy but I think that we would love to hear just um how criminal history records have stuck around in your life and impacted you long after you had completed your sentence um and you know repaid you know repaid your debt to society and just how we as a board um might not want to use criminal history records in the kind of traditional sense that they're used in and how we might be able to think differently about them especially as it relates to getting into the cannabis industry and and getting licenses in the hands of folks that may may have uh been previously targeted uh for um enforcement or um have been rehabilitated have served their have served their sentence so I you know I don't I assume that you're not going to get in the cannabis industry or you know if you want to that's great um just love would just love to kind of hear your story and hear about the collateral consequences of your conviction and then we have I think probably a few questions for you at the end sure um well and just listening to the conversation so far this morning I would just say well first of all you absolutely should look at criminal history um and it should be a factor in consideration obviously you want to make sure that you know you're not uh giving a a grant you're not granting a permit to a violent offender somebody who has demonstrated a lack of consideration for the public trust so it's it's interesting and I think I was talking about this with Julie originally I believe you know what you're talking about is potentially giving licenses to people who have already demonstrated that they will break the law and so we'll well oh yeah but it's weed so it's whatever now and blah blah blah well yeah but when it was illegal the people were willing to commit crimes to participate in that so it's a weird area to be like okay well this person had convictions previously and now we should just trust them even though we couldn't trust them before but it's the same thing you see so I understand you're in like a weird spot there so to me looking at criminal history is really important um do they demonstrate a history of criminality is it continuous is it is it various things did they just get picked up because they had a gram of pot in their pocket like 10 years ago yeah probably you don't have to worry about that person but if it's repeated history of a person who has demonstrated a lack of care and consideration for the law I'm not sure why you would want to trust them with this now so I just want to throw that out there so to me for you guys setting up the rules rather than reinventing the wheel I would probably just take something like what does a person have to demonstrate in order to get their record expunged if I as a person say say you're looking at criminal records is this crime eligible for expungement and if they apply for one could they get it um because I think Matt mentioned this and and I'll share my story in just a moment you don't know like I think you're really going to have to take all of these on a case by case basis and to me there's already a framework for you to do that by looking at what the expungement process is and if the person would qualify for it I don't think you have to reinvent the wheel um so I also have a felony conviction and I think one of the reasons why I specifically was encouraged to share is because 15 years ago that crime I did not have to be convicted of a felony and I didn't know that I could have said no to accepting that plea deal you know I was a drug addict I didn't have anyone to advocate on my behalf I had a public defender who did not really care about me or my circumstance and I mean understandable I was an asshole back then I was a drug addict like a lot of people in the middle of their addiction are just jerks and so it's not always surprising when you hear about public defenders not doing the best that they possibly can for their for their um for their client because we I was really sick and a lot of people when they're getting arrested and convicted are very sick so I don't totally blame him but I could have been charged with a misdemeanor and since 2006 when I was convicted I've seen multiple people charged with the same crime embezzlement for far more than me I think it was a few years after I got convicted a woman got busted for stealing like a hundred thousand dollars from St. Albans or something like that and she only got probation but I got a felony conviction and I served time in state prison and was on probation until my restitution was paid in full so sentencing across crimes is not the same depending on which county which judge which public defender or you know even which crime so it's worth making sure that as you do this you're looking at individual cases and like I said having the framework already for expungement I think is a great place to start from maybe you need to tweak it a little bit specifically for this um but that would be a great place to start um and I just totally take any questions I'm happy to talk about it I have no shame about my past you can ask me whatever you want to ask me um I would just like to say it's been interesting to hear people talk about the social equity pieces and so just to go on record you know Vermont is primarily a white state and when I was in college and in my 20s and early 30s Vermont was still one of the whitest states in the union and so I in my opinion if you're going to prioritize who to give um certificates to license licenses to or whatever it should be prioritized to Vermonters and people with a history in Vermont so there may be a desire to want to appear to be racially fair but if you give a license to a black person who's only lived in Vermont for two years instead of somebody like a mat I'm not saying you mat but somebody like a mat somebody who's lived here for decades and been involved in the in the scene and in whatever for decades um if you're gonna give it to a black person who's only been here for two years instead of a white person who's been here for 20 years I think that's a mistake and I think that whoever you do give licenses to should have ties to the community so it shouldn't be somebody who moved here five minutes ago it should be somebody here with family here it should be somebody who grew up here it should be it should be people with ties to the community so that you can ensure that the people you're giving licenses to actually care about Vermont and actually care about Vermonters and don't just care about appearing to be a woke or just don't just appear like they're doing something and people who just moved here to take advantage of our laws so that is my two cents on that piece and I'm happy to answer any questions you guys. Thank you Erica. Kyle, James questions. I do have a question so Erica this is a similar question that I asked. Oh I can't hear you guys. I'm sorry no if you can hear us. Oh there you go I hear that. Okay so uh Erica this is a similar question that I asked Matt which is and you've already touched on it a little bit but you know we are required to obtain and consider criminal history records of all of our applicants. We're not you know the the mere fact of a criminal history record or a conviction does not preclude license ownership but we're required to determine whether the an applicant with a criminal history record presently poses a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of a regulated market. I hear what you're saying about using the expungement criteria and you know for those who aren't aware there's certain crimes that are qualifying you have to have a waiting period where you haven't had a subsequent conviction and there's a few you have to have completed your sentence and you know there's a few other criteria but your crime your conviction is not expungement eligible. Correct and it's it's also even if it was you have a very unique circumstance around your restitution order and you know things have changed since then. You know what do we do for the folks like you that are not eligible for expungement for one reason or another but seem to clearly be you know in a good place to own a license you know that are before us and they're demonstrating to us that they could participate. Yeah great question. I think that's why I said I think the expungement criteria is a really good place to start. So you've got this framework right there's like certain crimes there's timeframes there's deadlines things you have to complete I think that's a great place to start. Now for somebody like me you could go okay well if all things were equal Erica could get an expungement like this is something in theory that she could do. I also just for the record I have a pardon application that has been sitting on Governor Scott's desk for 3 years that anybody who's read my application seen my information would gladly grant me the pardon. I hate I don't want to be like arrogant but I'm I even my probation officer said I was a model probationer. Okay like when the when the correction system is saying give Erica a shot like you know that there's something going on. So I'm sorry I'm just having weird problems with my sound can you guys still hear me? We can hear you okay. So that's the framework to start from. Obviously if people have demonstrated a history of violence I would not trust them with people I just I just wouldn't. Again if it's been 10 years if a person has put their life back together if they have demonstrated I think that given the sorry word I want to use given the sensitivity and the responsibility of owning any kind of a license where you're providing hallucinogens to people the the clearance for getting permission for that should be up here. It's nice to say we want to be equitable it's nice to say we want to give people a chance it's nice to say we want to be inclusive but you guys should always be keeping in the back of your mind that you are granting people permission to sell a hallucinogen to people. So should that be an easy mountain to climb? If someone does have a criminal record in my opinion they should have to at least do the same level of work that I had to do for an expungement application or a pardon application to demonstrate that they can be trusted selling a hallucinogen to people. I just clarify one point there because I think I thought I was clear but maybe I'm not. Yeah I thought what you were saying is that whether someone's gone through the expungement process or not or the pardoning process if they are technically eligible under the criteria we should treat them as if they've been expunged for the purposes of licensure it's those folks that aren't technically eligible that we should do on a case-by-case basis. I would say so I mean I would think that technically if they went through a process that was similarly set up as expungement it would that is the same as on a case-by-case basis right because you can't just apply for an expungement and then get it. It has to be reviewed people like so when I say use the same process like what kind of documentation do people have to provide what sort of review is done by the corrections department how you know what is the step-by-step process and things that a person has to provide in order to even be considered for an expungement. So I would say it should be a similar process to that regardless of whether or not they would actually be eligible for it. Okay yeah I only mentioned that sorry I only mentioned because you know expungement is somewhat complicated I know legally does a lot of work to help provide legal assistance to people seeking expungements but you know sometimes it requires an attorney certainly you know it is just getting that actual expungement order approved can be an additional barrier but I think we as a board can treat people that are expungement eligible that they're technically met all of the criteria as if they've been expunged. Well and just keep in mind like I had legal aid help me with my partner application and my expungement application that is free of charge and I will just state again if you can't count on people to go through the process of an expungement and getting that stuff together then you cannot trust them to sell drugs to people. Okay. I mean remember this is like a pharmacist pharmacists have to go to college and get certified and get degrees and all this other stuff and we're literally talking about homeboy off the street Joe Schmo, Joe Blow coming in and being like hey give me an application and oh by the way I'm a felon like okay well okay no big deal like no you're literally giving someone permission to sell drugs to people this should be hard this should be hard it should be a hard and complicated process and the person should need help to do it and the person should be willing and capable of going through the process and if they are not willing and capable of going through that process you should not trust them to sell drugs to people. Erica was there a wait when you sought help from legal aid was there did you have to wait for that or was there a I'm I'm I'm admitting some ignorance in this process so I'm yeah trying to understand what is it that people have to do to get to that expungement and get the resources that you had access to. Hey it's Erica Redick I want to apply for an expungement okay here's the instructions and then I got together what I could I wrote what I could I assembled everything that I had and then Maread O'Reilly I hope I said her name correctly was the person who helped me and so she gave me the instructions she kind of gave me some direction I compiled everything that she asked me to and then I sent it to her and then she reviewed it okay hey change the language here hey you might want to touch up your essays there blah blah blah blah blah. For me I probably took like a month to get it done because I also had to get you know I got like 15 letters of recommendation they only asked for three but I was like screw that I'm getting one from like everyone I know because I got clients and AA people and friends family you know I got across the spectrum. So I went harder probably than most other people necessarily might or have to but it really was not that complicated you know the hardest part honestly was like having to call corrections because I didn't have I couldn't find a copy of my discharge paperwork so I had to call and get a copy of it from the court and it cost me like two bucks or something stupid like that but it wasn't hard and again if you can't trust people to read directions and get some letters and write a couple essays then you cannot trust them to sell drugs good question though I appreciate the question. Hi Erica this is Kyle Harrison it's nice to meet you I don't believe we've had the pleasure of of meeting before and I think if I'm if I'm thinking about how to best sum up your your comments at least at the tail end of this discussion it's it's the board really needs to weigh accessibility. Is everybody just being quiet or oh no nope I lost my sound again what is this doing. I'm sorry guys okay. Can you hear me now. Yes. Yes sir. I'll be I'll start over and I'll be quick because I know we're running out of time. Okay. Nice to meet you Erica. Thank you for being here and sharing your story. My name is Kyle Harris and what I was going into is the tail end of your comments I think what I'm what I'm hearing is we really need to weigh accessibility into our legal marketplace with the respect and quality of the marketplace with which we're trying to stand up and I think we've got a lot of hard thinking to do on where to draw some lines in the stand in the sand recognizing that we want to be as equitable and inclusive as we as we possibly can. I have a question for you and it's similar to the one that I asked Mad and maybe your experience and your felony convictions might make and you know employment history so on and so forth might make this question easier or harder for you to answer I don't I don't know but thank you for your willingness to revisit but I know for a lot of folks it's one of the hardest times in their life so much appreciated. I asked Matt a question about give me the compounding effects of your your criminal conviction whether it's going to get a mortgage or a business loan or a personal loan so on and so forth you know I asked Matt in the context of trying to move folks from the illicit marketplace into the regulated marketplace but there's a lot of folks out there that I would imagine have convictions that have no experience with cannabis that may be interested so from your perspective in that perspective I'm curious what barriers you see that that you know we should look out for assuming that somebody can kind of do that hard work check the boxes to to make sure that they're not a violent felon so on and so forth but but are having trouble accessing capital or loans or you know commercial real estate or so on and so forth. Yeah great question and can you guys still hear me okay? Yeah so I definitely struggled to get employment I have very I've had barriers to employment my husband and I have had barriers to housing so even though it was a 15 year old felony there's places we can't rent so I definitely have lived in pretty ghetto neighborhoods like in Austin and other places because that's all you can get they're the only people willing to rent people with criminal records. I have not had a problem getting access to capital or a mortgage or anything like that as a result of my conviction but like job having a hard time getting jobs like let's be real I'm an accountant and I stole money to support my drug habit and then people have a hard time wanting to trust me doing their accounting like shocker okay I don't begrudge anybody that and anybody who has especially if the person is working from being rehabilitated or in recovery from substance abuse if they tell you that they didn't deserve or don't deserve every problem that they have as a result of their conviction they are not fully recovered from whatever it is they say they're recovered from and that's the truth so I take 100 full responsibility for the decisions that I made and yes I was the victim of society if you will I had been drugged and sexually assaulted the person who did it was not convicted for lack of sufficient evidence etc etc right like you can look at my past and you can go oh look Erica was the victim of society this is blah blah blah fill in the blank oh my god this is too bad right but I still made the choice to do drugs I still made the choice to steal from my employer to support my habit and as a result of that I deserve whatever the consequences are of that choice and anybody who tells you otherwise in my personal opinion is not actually recovered from their substance abuse because they have not taken responsibility for what is theirs to take responsibility for so I do not begrudge anyone having a hard time being willing to trust me I do not begrudge the additional hurdles I've had to overcome as a result of that and it makes my success today even sweeter because I have had to overcome so many more obstacles because I put them in my own way right like those obstacles I have to have had to overcome are my own fault and I put them in my way but I overcame them and as a result of being over being able to overcome that I have better self-esteem I have integrity I have discipline and I can feel good about where I've come from I've earned my dignity back by overcoming those obstacles that I put in my own way and anybody that is really truly recovered from addiction alcoholism or anything like that will tell you the exact same thing so that is not what's going to get in the way of people getting into the marketplace I think I heard a little bit of the conversation earlier I can tell you the hurdles for getting into the marketplace have already been put in the way by the legislature nobody dug down the street selling dope to his neighbors is not going to come get a license he's not going to start charging 30% tax anybody who buys dope from their neighbor is not going to go to the dispensary and pay 30% more with the taxes they're not going to want to go through regulated markets they're not going to want to give you their name they're not going to want to go on a list nobody wants to do that and so in my opinion the legislature has set this up to fail right from the start and that has nothing to do with criminal background checks or people with criminal backgrounds wanting to get into the marketplace thank you thank you do we have other questions for Erica just looking at the time mr chair and I don't have any other questions Erica it's so nice for you to be so open about this with us and you know your perspective is an important one so thank you once again for having to relive this kind of time in your life for help any time I get to use it for the good of my neighbors it is well worth every minute of it yeah well thank you thank you Erica thank you so we would like to do some public comments and you know we are we have a kind of hard start at 1240 when we have another witness but I think it would behoove us to do a little bit of public comment right now we're going to start with the folks that have joined via the link and can raise their virtual hands and and then we'll move to the folks on the phone so anyone who's on the phone that would wish to make public comments please just wait till I move to the phone and we're going to start with Dave Silverman Dave can you unmute yourself thank you chair pepper I just want to touch base on expungements and and the use of expungements while certainly I would not object to your creating a criteria where any expungement eligible offenses are deemed expunged to start with I really want to urge you not to limit it to that our expungement laws are really really weird and nonsensical so I'll give you a quick example um eluding a law enforcement officer is an expungible offense if you do it with a car but it's not expungible if you do it in a snowmobile um because that if you do it in a snowmobile that's a predicate offense and and if you do it a second time you can be charged more um with higher penalties than when you do it the first time and predicate offenses are according to statute not expungible and we don't actually have a good list of all the predicate offenses in law there are many many of them um so things like reckless driving is not expungible and it's a crime in Vermont it's not a traffic ticket and so I really want to try to steer you away from looking at expungible crimes as being the only things that should be looked past the legislative intent of the language that you referred to Chair Pepper uh was to um exclude people who are actively posing a threat to society so you know violence the the active threat of violence um as well as organized crime that that language around proper function of the regulated market was intended to exclude organized crime from the market um and so I really I beg you to narrowly focus on the statutory language here um and exclude as few people as possible uh because again as we talked about last week your overarching goal one of your main overarching goals is to bring in your existing sellers into this market and the more barriers you put in place by excluding them based on certain criminal histories the less will succeed at that goal thank you very much yep thank you David and thank you Dave for uh for your work on expungement as well um I'm just gonna I see three more hands raised I'm gonna skip around a little bit only because Susanna Davis has not provided public comment yet so Susanna if you could unmute yourself um and thank you for joining us for this thank you for having me um well I suppose it wasn't your choice it's an open meeting but um I just I wanted to touch on a few so I've been bouncing in and out of this hearing throughout the day to cover other meetings but from what I've heard throughout the day I just want to touch on a little bit of it and re-examine it from an equity lens I can't help myself that's how I am here available to you as a committee so um I really appreciate all of the commentary and the testimony so far especially from people who have lived experience with the justice system on cannabis enforcement that's incredibly important I'm getting a bad network quality warning so I apologize if my audio's choppy um and I just want to again cast all of this in in kind of an equity light I actually would agree with the con with Dave's comment about not limiting ourselves only to expungible offenses um as a you know presumptive approval and um and the reason for that again is because you know the the idea or the expectation is that if something has been deemed uh expungible it's because that is the only universe of things that should be expungible but we also know that law and morality are not always the same thing right there are sometimes incongruous and so I would encourage us to look beyond the scope of what the law permits um and on that note I do also want to address some of the comments that were made prior which are um the idea about who should or should not be eligible based on other factors other processes or other criteria for example we did hear the comment that if we can't trust a person to go through the expungement application process then we can't trust them to um you know be be licensed to participate in this market and I think that that that kind of a comment while I recognize I understand where it comes from right about demonstrating a certain level of um sticktuitiveness I recognize and respect where that comes from but it's reflective of immense privilege immense privilege to be able to say that because you were able to navigate a bureaucratic and deeply complex process that therefore everybody should be able to do it that if you had no barriers other people don't have other barriers and that people cannot be good at B if they didn't complete A and what you already have known in your experiences in your various professional experiences is that oftentimes people particularly from historically marginalized groups have been defeated by the system in so many other ways that going through another process through a legal system that's already failed them what would be the point in a lot of people's eyes right so I wouldn't necessarily look at failure to begin or complete one process as an indication of inability to be great at something else I also recognize the idea of holding people to a certain standard being able to say well if I had to go through something you should at least have to go through that much and we hear that a lot in contemporary and contemporary discussion around things like I don't know student debt well it's not fair to absolve such and such because if I had to suffer under this unfair system then other people should have to suffer too and I really encourage us to rethink that right we know that the American legal system is flawed in so many ways and yet because we've had system failures in the justice system that have impacted people today we should atone for that for those people but that doesn't mean we have to leave those same oppressive systems in place and have other people suffer under them right if we know it's bad for the people who've gone through it why continue something bad for new folks so similarly I would encourage us to look toward newer and better and different ways of going through this process instead of saying we're going to uphold the same unfair standards that we've already been upholding because it would be unfair to the people who've already gone through that and the last thing I just want to remind people love again I can't help myself as a person who is new to Vermont from two years ago I just want to remind the board that tenure in this state is not synonymous or interchangeable with who cares about the state or who has ties to the community I've known a lot of people who have come affirmatively to be a part of Vermont's community who have done more for their look for their towns and communities in the short time they've been here than some people who've lived here their whole lives and I know that there are some folks who do have ties to the community who may have done more harm than good in their time here and so I would just remind us as we consider priority you know that that we not just base it on this sort of in-state out-of-state xenophobia or the sort of you know you're a flat lander and I've been here for 29 generations and therefore I'm somehow more of a Bremont than you are because that's the same kind of thinking that contributes to the high churn rates that we see for people of color in Vermont who often report that they leave because they felt unwelcome because they felt like outsiders because they were repeatedly told they didn't belong and again you know if we're trying to accomplish multiple objectives like raising the state's birth rate increasing the number of students being enrolled in schools here increasing the retention of job markets and major employers these are all things that are at least in part fueled by whether Vermont and Bremonters see themselves as welcoming and really act out that welcoming so I would again remind us that tenure is not the same thing as investment personal investment and I'm gonna stop there that's that's what I got so far. Susanna thank you for that and you know your statutory required to help us but we would seek your help anyway I think on the social equity programming and the social equity applicant definition and it's going to be a huge part of our conversation at 1240 and and beyond and I would hope that you could join us kind of as an honorary board member to help talk with Bo Kilmer and Chalene Tidal about those very issues. So thank you for that and next on my list is Graham. Hi folks you caught me she's still napping here that's great for over two to two hour mark now that's impressive. This is Graham policy director at Rolvermont and I just want to first of all thank Susanna for everything she just shared I think she captured a number of responses to some of the comments that Erica made in particular that I would have made as well. You know I think clearly you know Mark Hughes is a member of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition with Rolvermont and a number of other organizations that we are colleagues with. I appreciated much of what was said by the other witness today as well but there's a you know I think one thing today is about social equity and I hope there's also a date for criminal justice reform conversation because they are not the same thing although they are often related. So I didn't come today prepared to speak on criminal justice reform but I'd like to quickly say that you know although we talk about decriminalization having happened in Vermont as has been said the type of decriminalization decriminalization that has happened more it certainly allows a number of people to be free from a particular type of convictions and that is excellent. However it largely maintains criminalization across most of the cannabis marketplace. It really just allows people to possess very small amounts and to grow very small amounts and people will be making incredible profits and are making incredible profits while some people are still in prison are facing the results of past incarceration and do not face any sort of reparation from that. So I don't think we should speak about decriminalization having in Vermont we could talk a little about market capture you know by limited decriminalization perhaps and you know one thing that was said was about people's willingness to repeat offend in the face of the law and I think one thing we should keep in mind is that we're here today because we recognize the history of prohibition and criminalization as fundamentally xenophobic racist and classist. This is not about people being willing to be out of compliance with cannabis laws it's about the laws and lawmakers complicity in criminalizing people and their behavior and people facing severe consequences in their lives. I personally know people who have had to make choices about whether they're going to serve time in prison before or after their child was born and people who are removed from their families and subsequently sexually assaulted in foster care. Those people and their families are not facing any sort of preparatory process from the state right now. Just keep that in mind. I want to quickly you know speak to what we came here to talk about racial equity and you spoke earlier Kyle you asked specifically about zoning and how commercial zoning or ag zoning or what have you experienced. Different zoning may impact racial equity and you know as Mark spoke to earlier he gave a number of statistics about how people of color inequities in wealth and access in communities of color versus white communities in the state. I don't think I need to revisit those numbers. But we know if you mentioned the lack of access to capital in land is banned knowledge or some of the preeminent factors you know limiting BIPOC participation in its marketplace. We heard similarly from Nikki last week that you know lack of access to capital land is is an issue amongst farmers but we know even more so when you are person of color you face historic discrimination or current discrimination and that's compounded even more so. We're running short on time but you know it's not to deemphasize the point that you're making right now. Can I quickly just finish the the points then. What I really want to make a point is the scale appropriate regulations and our ag and economic equity points. They are about access to land access to capital and access to the market. Therefore they will disproportionately impact those who have the least amount of capital and the least amount of access currently. Ag zoning doesn't mean you have to produce on ag land. It means that local municipal zoning regs don't apply to what you want to do. So if you have ag zoning for outdoor production then people could grow on their residential property. They could grow on ag zone land. They could grow on commercially zoned land. And if you made indoor production also available in residential areas as we heard last week from retailers a lot of people grow in their homes. They could have home-based businesses. All these recommendations I think would also impact this community of people that we're talking about here today. I'll leave it there as it sounds like you'd like to move on. Yeah and we'll have one more public comment period after our witnesses later today. And I see two more hands up. I think I actually need to just limit the public comment period right now. Again we will have one more public comment period but we have two witnesses coming at 1240. And I need to allow Kyle and Julie to kind of take just a quick break before we do those. So I'm sorry for the two folks with their hands up but we will come back to you at 2 30 when our witnesses are done. So with that Nellie could you throw up our away message and just pause the record. Well at this point you don't have to really pause the recording but maybe you could just throw up the away message until 1240. Okay it looks like we're all here. So we're back. This is the cannabis control board meeting June 17th. It's 1240 p.m. and we have Bo Kilmer. You know Bo has been so influential in cannabis policy nationwide. He's laid the groundwork really for cannabis tax and regulate and just home grow legalization in Vermont. He started people getting people feeling comfortable with the idea that if so many folks in Vermont are using this product regularly then maybe we should consider a safer tested packaged labeled products. And he was you know seminal in my thinking about cannabis policy and honestly if the cannabis board had a blank check I would do whatever we could to get him to come to Vermont and help us some more. But in the meantime he is very willing to come talk to us. And today Bo we are focused on social equity. What's been working across the state. What's what hasn't been working. How we can kind of learn the lessons and try our best to kind of get this right and maybe find a way that other states haven't haven't tried as we think about social equity and the definition of a social equity applicant. I would just say we're three board members Kyle, Julie, and myself. We're not going to understand all the nuances of this issue. We've been given the benefit of an advisory committee. We have some of those advisory committee members on right now that I'd like to kind of have them act as honorary board members because they're going to help us kind of craft our social equity programming and our social equity definition. So Nader, Neli could you re-enable Nader Hashim's camera if it if it was disabled. Great. So Nader is a was just recently I think yesterday or the day before appointed as our advisory committee member within expertise in systemic social justice and equity issues. And so he is here. Susanna Davis would you mind just popping up if you're willing. Great. Susanna Davis has the first of her kind role in Vermont. She's our director of racial equity and has been for about two years and she pursuant to act 164 is going to really help us dig into social equity. And you know Bo your time is incredibly valuable so I'd love to just turn things over to you but you know I would like to encourage Susanna and Nader and Julie and Kyle to ask questions of you depending on how you want to I'll leave it to you Bo how you want to present but if these folks have questions I think you know they're going to be instrumental in our work moving forward. Yeah no it's great and I mean I've prepared some slides but I mean my ultimate goal is to be as useful as possible so if at any point you have any questions just scream or raise your hand and great that's completely fine. Yeah so James if you could have someone give me the presenting ability. Nellie do you have the can you do that. I just did. Yeah all right let me put these slides up. All right can you all see that. Yeah fantastic well James thanks for the kind introduction and to say it is it's great to be back in Vermont you know as James mentioned I spent a fair amount of time there between 2014 and 2016 doing some work for the state and numerous phone calls with a lot of folks there just kind of helping people think through some of the various different options because as you all know if when you're considering alternatives to prohibiting cannabis supply you've got a lot of choices and I think Vermont ultimately implemented a very cautious approach that allowed for some flexibility I mean I just I was thinking about that if Vermont started with a commercial regime 2016-2017 and kind of the discussions we would be having about social equity would be quite different and so what I want to do for the next 20 minutes or so but as I said please feel free to interrupt at any time it's first of all just to provide a framework for thinking about cannabis policy and social equity and an important piece to this is recognizing that when we talk about social equity health equity has to be a piece to that as well and that's something there are other frameworks out there it doesn't give as much attention but that's something you're going to want to think about as well and then I also want to at the end kind of highlight seven different trade-offs or puzzles you know there are a lot of choices you're going to confront they're going to be pros and cons and there's some that we've identified by kind of looking at places that have already kind of started to you know take social equity and kinds of policy seriously and then some are a little bit more theoretical but things that you may want to consider you know the insights here based on primarily on three different journal articles if any of you i'm more than happy to send them for those of you who haven't seen them i'm more than happy to send them on my email just kilmer at rand.org and yeah it's we've been doing a lot more work kind of in this space and and i'm thankful for that i'm really happy to see how social equity has really kind of come to the forefront you know because it wasn't really there at the beginning you know when washington and colorado you know past legalization 2012 you know to the extent that equity was even discussed it was largely about reducing arrest inequities as well as incarceration although most of the people that are you know that were just as involved you know we're necessarily spending time behind bars but anyways that's kind of where the early discussions were but then over time you saw other states really begin to embrace this idea of expunging previous cannabis offenses or sealing them depending on the state and then even within that you know early on it would they would still kind of put the onus on the individual to go and have to petition the courts and then you saw some places kind of take that a step further and actually begin to go down the process of automatically expunging some of these offenses and then also you know especially in the past couple of years there's been an increased focus on you know trying to give entrepreneurship and employment opportunities to those from disproportionately affected communities we'll talk about that in a moment and then also how you can potentially use cannabis tax revenues to address some of these inequities so that the conversation really has evolved and like i said if vermont would have allowed commercialization 2016-2017 you know as i said this social equity conversation would be very different given probably the power that the existing companies would have already had but of course you know the big question is well who should benefit from these equity initiatives you know is it just those who are arrested or convicted for possession are you going to allow you know those with records for kind of maybe you know small time dealing sales you know will it be people who live in communities that were disproportionately affected by cannabis laws and if so how is this going to be defined by zip code police district those decisions matter quite a bit or you know should the beneficiaries maybe be some individuals who are confronting social inequities but that may have nothing to do with cannabis laws so there's a lot of options you have here and depending on the population you're trying to focus on that ultimately i think should determine kind of which lever policy levers you use so as i said look there are a number of kind of different frameworks out there to help decision makers think about this and so we kind of looked at what was already published in the literature and then we talked to a number of different regulators and so i'm thrilled that you're going to be hearing from shillene tidal next she was extremely helpful in terms of helping us kind of think through some of these issues but we ultimately came up with this framework in terms of thinking about the policy choices they've fallen to kind of six different categories you know arrests and penalties addressing previous cannabis offenses decisions about licensing fostering diversity in the cannabis workforce what to do with government revenues and then also health so i'm gonna quickly kind of walk through those before kind of getting to some of the different puzzles and trade-offs so obviously look i mean with legalization you're going to be reducing arrests and convictions i mean to the extent that we're not already decriminalized you may not see as big of an effect as you see it as you may have seen in some other places but you know it's not going to eliminate all police contacts so there's important questions that remain about well what are the consequences going to be for those who are arrested and convicted for you know underage use of public consumption driving under the influence depending on the choices you make there that also could have important implications for social equity and then also there's a question about well what's going to happen to the illegal market look i mean we've seen this it takes time to significantly reduce the size of the illegal market after you legalize i mean you're not going to shut it down overnight and but one of the questions confronting jurisdictions is okay as you move to this more regulated environment are you going to step up efforts to try to shut down reduce the or try to reduce the size of the illegal market to move people toward the the regulated stores and there could be and we'll talk about this later on but there could be potential equity implications with that as well depending on well what does target enforcement look like is this going to be you know applying criminal sanctions or will this be done more like through code violations or civil violations the decisions you make about if you decide to to go out to try to reduce the size of the illegal market the decisions about whether especially criminal versus civil could have important implications for social equity but a lot of that also depends on the characteristics of those who are already participating in the illegal market and as you know that varies quite a bit depending on kind of what state and what kind of county you're in or jurisdiction also this idea of addressing previous cannabis offenses expund we we recently did some work for the state of Virginia or Commonwealth of Virginia helping them think through this and we found kind of looking at their criminal justice data we found that if you know if you're just even expunging kind of simple cannabis possession offenses that's going to affect many more people that then could be affected by giving them employment or entrepreneurship opportunities I mean it was like the order was twice the order of magnitude I mean it was large I mean granted it could be a bit different there and those aren't mutually exclusive but this is something to think through and of course you know as I read before I know which offenses are going to be eligible you know I think the big question is what are you going to do with those that were convicted for kind of low level sales most places allow you know when they are doing expunging and sealing you know they are allowing for possession offenses there is a fair amount of variation though in terms of the amount you could have had and they're all and I realize that I think in New York one of the things they're trying to grapple with is trying to go back to the criminal records to see how much information there is about the total weight that may have been seized during a justice involved transaction but the big question is is this going to be automatic or is the owners going to be put on the individuals obviously if you put the if you put the owners on the individuals you know depending on the jurisdiction you know it takes time and effort you know some places you may have to hire a lawyer and that creates barriers whereas if it's automatic that makes it a heck of a lot easier and so we've seen some more states kind of moving in the automatic direction and you know it's been a while since I've worked with the criminal justice data in Vermont but you know states there's a lot of variation in kind of the IT systems that states have and so in some places it can be a lot easier to kind of automatically expunge I'm not sure what the situation is in Vermont but that's something that you kind of have to keep in mind unfortunately there are a number of even nonprofit organizations for example Code for America and there's some others that have been you know that have been working with different states to kind of help them write the code to expunge to make it easier to expunge or seal offenses not just for cannabis but uh that may be something the state of Vermont may want to uh think about so licensing this is a big one and even stepping back not even necessarily thinking about social equity you know deciding who gets to sell or supply and how much has uh is one of the biggest decisions you're going to confront because at the end of the day if you end up giving out too many licenses um that's going to you know increase competition and it's really going to push profits down and so and especially if you're thinking about social equity and trying to make and trying to build wealth in certain communities if you give out too many licenses it's going to make it even harder for some to make profits and so I mean I think the example here is Oregon Oregon gave out way too many licenses and uh I think there are various reasons for doing that but realize there are implications there um also you know the big question uh you're going to confront is you know will there be preferences for licenses or employment in the industry and if so which populations are you going to target there um I I think you'll probably hear from Shalene later on about you know you know will there be requirements for a binding equity plan and also are there going to be supports built in to kind of you know potentially help individuals that are in um in disproportionate effect to communities in terms of making it easier for them to apply maybe you know having fee waivers or providing training so there's a lot of decisions here but that first bullet is really important and this is you know this is somebody I talked to James about a while ago and I I mean I I think it'll be useful and I think you recently have had someone kind of estimate the size of the market so I I think based on that and then thinking about well how much you know how many tourists do you want to supply um using that as a gauge for beginning to think about how many you know how many you know how much production you want to allow then once you have that then you can decide how much how much of it you want to go to small medium versus large growers um that's going to be important if you just kind of go about just giving out licenses um you know pretty much to to a lot of people who apply that's going to have big implications not only for social equity but also arguably for public health so fostering diversity in the cannabis workforce um this is something so this is not necessarily thinking about entrepreneurship but this is actually getting um individuals from disproportionate affected communities kind of working in the industry so obviously questions about you know will there be recruitment and training efforts in these communities um we know kind of outside of the cannabis world that BIPOC owned businesses are more likely to hire BIPOC employees so that's also something to kind of keep in mind when you think about licensing and you know and depending on the state you know states have various laws um with respect to affirmative action another if one of your goals is to increase diversity in the campus workforce another option is potentially having some government stores you know where you could have the smaller jurisdiction or it could actually be a state agency kind of running it and then potentially using affirmative action now as I said I'm not it's been a while since I've gone through Vermont law and definitely not with respect to affirmative action policy so I don't know if this is something that could actually fly there um but that is an option that a lot of places have overlooked we'll talk a little bit more about government stores later on um what are you going to do with government revenues I mean this you could you know potentially use it to fund reparations or restorative justice efforts I'm sure some of you are aware of an Evanston Illinois they're using some of their cannabis tax revenues for reparations for black americans and so they recently just announced the details of that and I think initially the money is going to go to help help individuals especially in the realm of housing I don't know if it's for remodels or helping with mortgage payments but it's very much kind of targeted toward housing I mean there are a lot options there but they've they've made the decision that that's where they're going to put some of their cannabis tax revenues and so that is an option also you know as we talk about you need to be thinking about health equity as well so are you going to be putting money into health services or programs in disproportionately affected communities and then also you know another another option is to you know use some of those government those tax revenues to fund training and grant programs um and as I said Shalene's going to have a number of insights on on what works there and what doesn't um finally health um you know this is not when we think about licensing it's not just in terms about how many production licenses you're going to give out but also deciding on you know the number of stores and where they're going to locate uh this is important um we we know there's a growing body of literature suggesting that cannabis stores are concentrating in minority communities and places with high levels of deprivation and there's some evidence suggesting that you know the closer you live to a cannabis store it's associated with more frequent use now I've got to say we have to be careful here because it could just be the case that the stores are smart and the stores are just located in places where there's a higher number of cannabis users so these two studies and that second one is one I'm a co-author on I mean it's very much about the association but and I'm hoping that eventually there's going to be kind of more rigorous research on this really trying to tease out how much of it is because the store is there versus just that the store is located there because of high rates of cannabis use um but this is something that had to think about and also in terms of thinking about health the products that are allowed could affect health equity and I'm more than happy in the Q&A session to talk about what the research the overall researcher says about legalization of public health but I do want to spend just a little bit of time talking about cannabis potency and health and you know there's there more studies are coming out on this and I've got to say you know a lot of the measures they're using are pretty crude you know sometimes a lot of times people don't know how much they're consuming what they're using in these studies are are are pretty crude measures so it makes it hard to kind of precisely know what's going on and we also know that you know these the higher THC products can be more efficient you know especially for those with some medical conditions um that's seven and then I suspect you know especially as a as a board you're going to be having more discussions about products and at the end of the day we actually need to know more about titration that is you know say for example when when it was five percent THC and someone needs to smoke a whole joint you know well when it's 15 percent THC do they only smoke a third right it could be once again just even for those using for non-medical purposes it just could be more efficient um there's not a lot of research on that you know done here in the United States a couple studies in Europe um but there are two new reviews of kind of this emerging research that suggests that we need to take some of these potential risks seriously so there was one um a working group out of Washington State that found that the THC content of cannabis products contributes to adverse health effects and that dose response matter when it was particularly concerning for young users and those that already had a kind of pre-existing mental health conditions and they were worried that it could disproportionately affect individuals and low income and minority communities and right before that there was also another review of this work um you know from some folks in Colorado and they found that the evidence is moderate to strong concerning THC concentration and the association with the mental health effects um but in terms of the specific THC content for products they said you know the evidence is insufficient when examining you know does it increase it does it lead to an increase in dependence or acute health harms um you know absence of evidence isn't the same as evidence of absence right I mean this is just that this is an emerging field and I think researchers are still trying to get a good handle on trying to measure consumption but this is something that um that as a regulatory board that you're going to want to I'll pay attention to and um so that that said um you know in the process of doing this there are kind of a number of different things that you're going to have to consider and uh kind of label these in terms of kind of puzzles and trade-offs and you know and obviously the first one is if your target group or the area you're focusing on is too large not only does that mean that it's going to be fewer resources for each of those individuals but you run the risk of helping those who don't need it and um when we were doing some of the research on this we were talking to folks in in Seattle and gentrification is an issue if you say people from these particular neighborhoods you know you know should be given preferences for licenses if you've got gentrification happening you could have people who actually live in those communities that could be get this preferential license you know preferential treatment but at the end of the day weren't necessarily the folks that you were trying to target in terms of helping with social equity and and we've seen this in Los Angeles I forget how they I don't know if they used I forget what they initially started with in terms of the geographic area um but they soon realized that they had to narrow that down considerably so I think they've narrowed it down to police districts um so uh so this is something to keep in mind I think I think it's easier to start very narrow and then expand as opposed to being very expansive early on and then trying to kind of trying to uh um you know get you know refine and get to smaller areas um a second issue is that you know defining beneficiaries by race or ethnicity can lead to legal challenges um you know we talked to regulators I sure I'm sure you have as well in other states that you know while you know while for their social equity programs they really are trying to focus on helping um individuals um uh from uh BIPOC communities at the same time they're afraid that if they actually kind of you know specifically mentioned that that it could open them up to legal challenges and you know some states have treated this differently but you know we saw this happen in Ohio a couple times uh with respect to their medical program and uh there've been a few lawsuits kind of challenging their uh um their equity efforts and those efforts and those lawsuits were successful um and so uh but on the other hand you know you know depending on your willingness you may be you know you may be willing to like if you think this is the right thing you may be willing to deal with those legal challenges but that is something that you want to think about and you know a third piece to this is that you know increased enforcement against the illegal market could help the equity licensees right you know especially in terms of you know you know trying to move people from the illegal market to the legal market but as I mentioned before there's a there's a potential trade-off there and you know how what what does increased enforcement look like and could that actually end up uh exacerbating some uh uh inequities and it may be the case that it does but overall um you know I'm not it's still maybe worth it to do it but this is something um that you're gonna want to think through um and a lot of it will depend on the characteristics of those who are participating uh currently in the illegal market um fourth one is to realize that legalization could reduce total employment in the cannabis industry I mean you hear these numbers about that you know there's so many people that you know that that cannabis legalization has increased jobs but in a lot of cases it's just move jobs it's moved jobs from the illegal market to the legal market obviously they're payroll taxes there's there's other implications with it being legal um but in terms of the total number of people who are employed in this market um we really we suspect over time legalization is going to reduce that legalize I mean especially in uh the more commercial markets it's just so much more efficient to be having these you know with these huge grows and uh and you just don't need as many employees so I just would be careful when you hear people say oh we're gonna increase the the the amount of the number of jobs and the number of individuals up from bi-bi communities who are in those jobs that may not be the case they're gonna be legal they'll be legal jobs but in terms of money people um money that people are bringing in um or income it's not necessarily the case so this is something to kind of think about as well um you know and also increasing the number of licenses in an in area you know as I mentioned before it could you know to push down prices to push down profits as well as increase the availability of cannabis in that community and that's why there's concern about uh you know the emerging evidence suggesting that you know these stores are located in in minority communities in places with higher levels of deprivation um from a regulatory standpoint this is something you can address you can decide not only the number of stores but also in terms of the density that that that is a choice that you have um but this is something especially when you begin thinking about health equity um you know we we we saw this with liquor stores right a number of places you know we saw liquor stores also concentrating these communities leading to a number of negative effects now of course alcohol and cannabis have very different harm profiles and I think the evidence is still out um or the jury's still out with respect whether or not alcohol and uh and and cannabis are complements or substitutes I mean a lot depends on kind of what population you're talking about but this is something to think about in terms of the number of licenses but also the density of the licenses for the retail outlets and also when you're planning this and I think you're I think you know after talking to James and others about this I mean I think this is this is where you know you can really begin thinking about okay as we design this program and we think about the potential benefits you need to think about what's going to happen with federal legalization and you know obviously federal legalization would reduce some cannabis arrests although I mean most of the action when it happens when we think about cannabis arrest I mean most of that's happened at the same local level um but it can actually put a lot of your equity licenses out of business and so you know when you talk to people that are in the industry I mean obviously they're they complain about the federal prohibition and rightfully so it makes it harder to do banking harder to get financing and their their tax implications um but what you don't hear from a lot of folks is many of them are actually able to still stay in business because of the federal prohibition and um and we had estimated a while ago we just updated this but it's still the case that you can produce all of the THC that's consumed in the United States on a few dozen big farms that's it so with federal legalization you know that can federal legalization could look a lot in different ways but if you know if it's no longer if it's no longer prohibited to move cannabis products across state lines you could see the industry concentrating very quickly and so when you think about jobs and kind of your small entrepreneurs or small growers if you have this all concentrated in one part of the country and with increasing returns to scale this can make it a lot harder for these smaller businesses ultimately to compete and and as I said we don't know you know when or you know or if but I mean it sure seems like we're heading in that direction you know what federal legalization will look like but you know there's also you know who knows in terms of whether or not imports would be allowed but you know it you know it would also be you know in a lot of cases a lot cheaper to grow the cannabis offshore extract out the THC CVD other components and then move that back up which would have really important implications for the smaller growers and then also the big question is is if there is federal legalization and I've actually seen a couple stories about this recently but this is something we've been thinking about for a while if amazon is allowed to distribute what that's going to mean for your smaller entrepreneurs so this is something to kind of keep in mind when you're thinking about designing these regimes because you know you have licensed preferences you get people in the market but then if they end up going out of business it could have been the case that if they would have spent that time effort and money on a different industry they may have ended up doing better so this is something that an important trade-off that you're gonna have to think through and finally you know compared to the profit maximizing approach that we see in most places in the U.S. you know a state store model could generate more government revenue to address inequities and also kind of based on what we saw with alcohol and government control you have fewer public health harms and so this is you know whereas in the current regime you've got the profits going mostly to white males you know with a government store model that money then stays in with the state and then you and if you spend it correctly you could use it really to try to address inequities in these disproportionate factor communities now I don't know if that if there's an option for that within with what you're discussing in Vermont if it's possible for a small jurisdiction to have a you know to kind of have a government own store but it's definitely something if you care about social equity and you care about public health this is something that should at least be discussed you know early on when when people were talking about kind of the the state store approach there was a lot of concern about well what's the what would the federal government do right the you know the state you know if the state was doing that they essentially would be ordering their employees to violate federal law and but I think over time you know that concern isn't as salient I mean what we now have more than 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in states that have passed laws to allow commercial production and retail sales and you know I think there's some nervousness at the beginning of the Trump administration no one was quite sure what his department of justice was going to do but even though they rescinded the Coleman the Coleman Miranda or memoranda it really you know for all intents and purposes it didn't change things so I think that that's less of a concern now but it but it's something that I think that jurisdictions should be thinking about I mean they're pros and cons but it's but but if you're if you care about public health you care about social equity this this is something worth considering so final thoughts I looked at a lot of kind of outcomes that as you know they get discussed in legalization debate social equity is just one of them but it's becoming more prominent and I'm happy to see that I I think this is this is this is an important piece right right next to some of the other outcomes you know there's there's it's not controversial to say that we want to reduce inequities in most circles but the trade-offs here are going to make these some of these decisions a lot harder and I think ideally and this seems like something we're providing in a kind of a sweet spot for is really thinking about okay if these are you know what are the if these are the different groups or communities that we really want to try to benefit with legalization you know then beginning to kind of run the numbers like okay if we do this approach we think it could help that you know we could it could help build wealth by this amount if we take this approach it could build wealth by this amount I mean I think I think that's one of the things that's been missing so far from these equity discussions is actually just kind of running the numbers and saying okay if my goal is to help this particular population what what's going to be the most effective approach you know is it giving out license preferences is it doing something more on trying to increase employment opportunities you know will it be just you know with respect to expungement there's a lot of choices here and the final point I want to make is even as you're kind of going through this process anticipate the need for mid-course corrections no one's going to get that no one has gone this right and even in some of the places that have taken this seriously Los Angeles, Massachusetts, Illinois had great intentions they've had to make big changes or they've had to make significant changes so I think as you're developing these kind of regulations of thinking through or making it easier to make these mid-course corrections I think it's going to be really important because you're likely going to run into things that you weren't planning on and to the extent that social equity is a goal I think you're going to have to make some of these adjustments so with that I will close and James and I thank you so much for the opportunity and you know I look forward to answering any questions you may have and you know if I don't know the answer I definitely will do my best to try to point you in the right direction to the person who may have it so thank you so much yeah so Julie could you just kind of manage the question process sure um if it's okay with you I'll ask the first question since you offered um can you go back Bo and talk a little bit about the health impacts of the concentration of stores I know that you address this in one of the papers that you wrote about the concentration of stores and then use in that area and then the subsequent health effects can you I know you touched on it a little bit but can you talk about that a little bit more and then I'm also curious about you know a concentration of stores and then the impacts on youth in that particular area yeah so as I said this is so there there are a number of studies now which kind of document that where cannabis retail stores are opening it we saw this one medical we're seeing this with non-medical as well um that they are concentrating in BIPOC as well as BIPOC communities as well as places with higher levels of deprivation they're all these different indices now in terms of the health effects there isn't a lot out there I mean people are just I mean it takes a while to kind of get these data so there have been a couple studies which have looked at this and they found that you know people that live closer to where stores open up end up having more free end up using more frequently that first study focused largely um the events I think it was by Julia Dilley and the first one I had listed there that was focused on adults in Oregon and so what I don't think it was focused on youth at all the second paper which I was a part of was looking at stores both licensed and unlicensed in Los Angeles it was focused on young adults so it wasn't I mean so it's not adolescents but it's not necessarily kind of all adults finding that those who live closer to stores were more um were more likely to be we're using more frequently and that actually was nice because we've been following or my colleagues have been following this group of about 2,500 young adults I mean they started I think when they were 13 in Los Angeles following them for about 10 years so they were able to control for a lot of factors um but as I said we have to be really careful with these studies because they're not based on they're not using any type of kind of real kind of quasi-experimental design and so it's hard to rule out well was it because the store was there that people were more likely to use or but the store is just smart and you know the the proprietors so I mean I look at that and but it's consistent with you know some other literatures we have with alcohol and tobacco but but I mean I definitely would consider this an emerging area and so far though they're really just focused on you know the the frequency of use not necessarily kind of other health harms right I mean that's the other thing as I'm sure most of a lot of you have run into you know so much of the research especially on the health consequences you know so much of it focuses on well did legalization affect whether or not someone consumed cannabis in the past month well from a health perspective we don't really care as much about that as we do you know kind of more frequent use the types of products that are consumed um you know whether or not someone's meeting criteria for a cannabis use disorder but part of that is just the nature of the data you know I I don't think the researchers always want to rely on that but that's what data were available and so one of the things that I had been seeing a change in is beginning to change some of these survey instruments so we can get better information not only on how frequently people are using what they're using but you are seeing people then try to get more information on you know the different health outcomes as well um but uh so I know that may not be entirely satisfying um but but yeah like I mean there's a there there are a lot of there are a lot of researchers kind of in this space now I gotta say back back in the early days when I was spending time in Vermont there were a lot of drug policy researchers or people kind of looking at this but now with it there's been so much policy change it actually for you know you actually can begin to kind of do some more thorough evaluations so there's a lot of people kind of working in the space which is encouraging but uh yeah so so we don't have but in terms of kind of other health consequences you know for example does you know if stores open how does that affect driving under the influence like that's something I'm really interested in um and especially when people talk about you know kind of uh uh consumption rooms where like social consumption like essentially we have cannabis clubs and they're like bars but essentially people are using cannabis you know what does that mean for impaired driving I you know step I really don't know um you know because on one hand you know if people are going to the cannabis the you know the cannabis club you know smoking a couple joints then going to a bar you know we know that the interaction between alcohol and cannabis is you know can really increase the risk of getting into an accident but if people are instead of going to the bar and having you know having a bunch of drinks or then going to the cannabis club that may actually from when you think about impaired driving that actually may be a net win so it's actually interesting so so that's one of the things kind of as a commission as you're kind of looking at the research on this I would focus on especially with impaired driving focus on the studies that look at the total number of crashes or the total number of accidents as opposed to those that are believed to be linked to cannabis because first of all it's it's as we know THC it's it could be hard to measure the THC and then even when you do it's not necessarily correlated with impairment and so and when you when you only focus on studies that look at whether or not THC was involved you you're you're omitting kind of this bigger picture in terms of what what what are the potential you know trade-offs and like substitutes and and complements with alcohol in other drugs so that's why I think the better research in this area is is that are those studies that focus like I said on the total measures excellent thank you um Nader has a question yes thank you I just have two quick questions if it's okay and I think the first one was partially answered I think but relating to licensing I was wondering if you could provide any direction as to how we could measure how many stores or how many licenses in an area are too many licenses and what metrics we would use to quantify that in the future that's a great question and I think it's one that not a lot of people are asking or even fewer attempting to answer um and I guess what I would do is um I'm sorry I got knocked off there for a second can you can you hear me yeah great um okay so James I feel like didn't didn't you recently have someone kind of do an estimate on consumption in the states we had uh Vincente Cedarburg do uh market analysis in August of 2020 okay and did they break it down did they just come up with state totals or did they break it down kind of by different counties by like neighboring states that would you know residents of New York and mess or New York and I guess Rhode Island and others that would come to visit us they broke it down by people that are coming strictly as tourists that might also purchase um you know so so it's not totally up to date probably need some updating but based on New York and New Jersey yeah yeah I mean that's that's gonna be that that's a whole separate issue we could talk about but so I think what I would do is to the extent into what Nada was asking about I think the first thing I would do is if you got a state level estimate just just even amongst state residents and trying to kind of break that down and so kind of looking at whether by county or something like trying to get the number of people who use or actually in that you actually want kind of the total amount consumed you know for example by city or by county and uh and then in terms of thinking about okay so how many stores to allow um I guess I mean one thing I I mean one thing I would do is at that point begin to you know either you or have someone begin to look at kind of what this is where I think we might be able to learn from other jurisdictions in terms of what they've done and I know there's a fair amount of variation so Julia Dilley who's a researcher up in Washington does a lot of work on cannabis legalization in Washington and Oregon and she actually um she's got this slide where she shows the number of stores per capita it just by state and you see that in Washington state it was much lower than it was in Oregon um so um so I would I would initially start there um and and then also and and this is where I I would start kind of by looking at other places but then also I think this is where you need to build them the flexibility right so um I I mean my my preference I would start small I would give out a small number of licenses kind of see how that goes and if it's obvious that you know that maybe another store needs to open up um it's a lot easier to kind of do it that way as opposed to if you just give a bunch of licenses out and then decide later on oh wait that was too many and then it's a lot harder to try to bring that back in so now I know that may not be entirely satisfying but initially getting a good sense of kind of local market conditions and then also getting to look at what other states have been doing in this space and then kind of taking that making some decisions and then starting small I mean that seems like the most kind of risk averse approach that definitely helps thank you um and I I just had one more question that was a bit more general uh you mentioned at the end uh mid-course corrections and you know obviously Vermont is quite different from places like Los Angeles and Seattle um I was wondering if you have any input on what potential mid-course corrections we might expect down the road yeah I mean part of it depends on you know um kind of how you start off like for example as I mentioned like for you know for example Los Angeles in terms of when they were defining disproportionately affected communities I don't know they may have started at the zip code level and then realize that by doing it that way they you know you end up helping a lot of people that weren't necessarily the targets of the social equity program so then they then they moved down to I think police district but then also I think there was a recent change where then in order to get an equity license you had to have a previous arrest in the you know for cannabis which which wasn't um which was one of the criteria before but then they kind of narrowed that down so narrowed down geographic areas then they also narrowed down kind of the populations and you'll talk to Celine here in a little bit I mean what they ended up doing in uh Massachusetts was I think they ended up deciding that when they were going to give out the licenses for delivery and maybe something else that they were initially going to limit all of those just to equity applicants or they have I think it's social equity and economic empowerment applicants there um which wasn't something that was initially so I so I definitely think um I mean at the end of the day it really gets down to which populations are you trying to help and and then you know and then I say based on that you know is it anyone that's had a cannabis arrest or a cannabis conviction in the past is it those who live in communities where there have been a disproportionate number of arrests compared to other parts of the state um I think once you once you kind of figure that out um that in theory I mean look I understand politics and all that stuff but you know stepping back identifying the population you want to help I think is going to be the first step and then once you have that population to find then you can look at all these different lovers that I talked about and I'm sure Celine will tell you about some others and then kind of pick okay if my goal is to help this population the most these three lovers will probably be the best you know yeah I guess the the other thing that I would say is you know and I don't know how much power the the commission has in terms of helping to allocate tax revenues um yeah okay so but anyway so that's that's potentially important because if it turns out that you realize that hey look one of the best approaches is going to be taking our cannabis tax revenues and putting it into using some of that money into and putting it into uh efforts in communities to help build wealth I mean you may be putting that money into programs that have nothing to do with cannabis um right in terms of kind of building wealth in some of these communities but you know a lot of that's going to depend on well you know can you get the resources there you know and that's and that's where you know the the the politics gets involved yeah pepper um so I have a question that's related but I actually would like to defer to Susanna if she has one we invited her here and she's going to be very instrumental in our um piece so Susanna if you have a question just because we're sure on time I'm okay for now thank you and thank you brother this was really informative yeah no and Susanna as for all of you if at any point after this you have any questions just feel free to shoot me an email like I said I'd be more than happy to answer if I can if not point you in the direction of someone maybe in another state who's been kind of dealing with some of those issues so so Bo my question follows up on what we were just talking about um you know Julie reminded us earlier today that uh today is the actually anniversary of former president Nixon declaring the war on drugs 50 years ago um and so but it does tie into this question about historically impacted areas and policing districts free and reduced price lunching and where we can find that data and if the if it is if there are is good data dating back 50 years and um you know a lot of people who were born that might be seeking licenses now you know that their neighborhoods have changed you know where they grew up has changed and then um also just you know we've been hearing a lot about potentially prioritizing Vermont applicants there's actually some language in the in act 164 our enabling legislation that gives some priority to Vermont applicants it gives them some technical assistance but you know like uh for us um as a board you know in Vermont we've we've decriminalized um cannabis uh maybe a decade ago and we've really stopped enforcement so we're not going to see a lot of those cannabis convictions here in Vermont that we might see from out of state applicants and we don't want to be um you know we're i'm not suggesting that we would give preference to Vermont applicants and you know at the disadvantage of people coming from out of state but it does seem like you know these kind of evolution of policy over time or police targeted policing over time um and gentrification as it builds in might really just impact you know if we have a generic definition of high impact area or disproportionately impacted area and it's you know it the it's evolved over the course of the 50 year war on drug then um how do we as a board try to start to kind of define social equity applicant in a way that actually you know brings the people in that we're trying to bring in yeah well that's interesting in terms i didn't realize that about out of state licenses so does the commission have the ability to initially limit licenses to vermont residents um i don't think that's in the statute anywhere i know that you know when i when we were originally working on this uh in uh 2015 that was a hot topic of discussion and i think colorado had residency requirements of i think six months or a year but i there's nothing in our legislation that would limit our license ship to vermont residents but i don't know i mean as a commission do you have the ability to make to when you're kind of doing the licensing scoring to to allow that to allow preference for vermonters yeah well so the one piece where kind of vermont residents are singled out in our legislation is that we um our agency of community development and a few other organizations need to provide technical assistance in the application process to vermont residents so they will have some help that other folks will not have in actually preparing an application yeah yeah no that's that's just it's a bit concerning because you know the the issue is is you get the multi-state actors right um you know those those from out of state that got licenses in other places and you know they're going to be you know and especially once and once they can move product you know if they can eventually move product across state lines it's going to make it a lot harder for them smaller the smaller entrepreneurs to compete um but but you raise a really interesting question about well when we think about you know because the way that's been defined in some places is and i know that we're talking about this in vermont i don't know if they ultimately decided on this as they looked at cannabis possession or maybe just yeah at least cannabis possession arrests kind of in different um you know in different jurisdictions kind of over time and then they looked at those that were made up and above the median or you know in terms of a rust rate i think they actually maybe maybe even did it by race as well um and race ethnicity and then from there you know said okay all of these areas that are you know in the you know in the 75th percentile or higher or you know some they have some threshold like that then they use that to define it as a disproportionately affected community that they would get preference to um i i think you're right i i think to the extent that vermont has decriminalized and so i i so it may be useful to go and i don't know how far back your data um the data you have on arrest goes um but i mean i definitely think you know doing something you know historically as well i i think i think that's something that places haven't thought that much about but i think you're right um yeah because just because someone lives in the community now that wouldn't be considered a DAC doesn't mean they weren't you know you know 20 years ago um yeah but but at the end of the day it's a lot of this comes down to you know how you know how much you want to address race ethnicity like some some of these states they want to but they decide just not to mention it at all they try to use different proxies to try to get at this because they're worried about getting sued and and rightfully so we thought i remember we talked to some regulators in a state that they were worried that even if they allowed license preferences based on race even though they had a much larger social equity program they were worried that even if the licensing component was giving preferences by race or ethnicity that that could end up you know if there were lawsuits on that it could shut down their whole equity effort right potentially so they they were very kind of risk averse on this but you've seen other play like you know Ohio definitely has gotten sued um but no i i think when you talk to Shilin next she'll have some thoughts about that as well because i think massachusetts had to deal with that um yeah thanks yeah kyle or susana do you have questions julie are we running behind schedule um we i think we planned for Shilin at 140 okay unless nellie tells me that that's incorrect so i think you could go ahead and ask your question but that might be the last question okay well great uh great to virtually meet you read a lot of your work um and so it's great um i guess i had a comment um and it's more about a comment that you know i think we really need to drill and i know you spend time in vermont you know assessing our market on a certain level and you know that we mentioned that new jersey new york coming online is going to change that dynamic a lot and i think in consideration of that and looking at some of the questions that were asked earlier about what's the the right type of a number of establishments um in a given area you know you take an area like like stow which i'm not a resident of stow but i believe there's like four thousand year-long residents of stow and i would imagine that it's one of the higher concentrated tourist areas of the state so how do we really drill down into a license structure that is equitable and makes sense um so that there's not too few too many or a couple months out of the year when people are really coming uh to stow to ski so on and so forth and then my other well i guess if you if you have any response to that first my other my other comment is is something that you had mentioned and it's something that keeps me up at at night um from a small cultivator perspective in in vermont and in federal legalization and how we can anticipate things kind of ahead of time not really knowing what federal legalization if it happens what it would look like but i mean i used to work for agribusiness at the national level in a highly concentrated or consolidated industry and i know that it doesn't help small cultivators and i'm they are going to be front and center or marketplace but i don't want as you kind of alluded to things to kind of go awry if all the thc consumed in the in the country either is grown overseas or on a few dozen mega farms across the midwest yeah so getting to your first question i mean that's really interesting about seasonality in tourism right in terms of the stores i mean once again i would start small and then like i said it'll be a lot easier for you to you know start off with a couple licenses see how that plays out um and then over time add more if you need to um yeah but that is interesting to know what happens in the in the summer time when there may not be as many tourists there um i mean i guess well i mean the other interesting thing to think about is is delivery allowed in vermont no but we're supposed to make a recommendation about it we're supposed to do it in april we'll be making it in either october or january yeah i mean the other option a place like still where you don't have a lot of full-time residents would be to have you know um as a one option would be as opposed to having a lot of stores there potentially giving stores nearby and other communities the ability to do the deliveries that's that's one idea um but in terms of but no cow you're raising this issue that that a lot of places are going to be confronting like okay we want to help these small entrepreneurs especially those have you know come from disproportionately affected communities also we get federal legalization they're gonna they're gonna be potentially hurting so i mean i think so there's a couple different i mean so this gets to this bigger issue of who are you trying to help because you know and may be that yeah you're giving training programs to help people get into the cannabis industry but some of that money may be better spent helping people get into other potential uh uh you know industries and and i think and i think being thoughtful about this um you know anticipating that that's gonna happen and what type of support will you know will there be for these smaller entrepreneurs as they just hey let the market decide hey they're out they're gonna lose their their earnings or will there be support programs to kind of help them and uh and and also in terms of you know and then beginning to think about helping them think about when to get and you look there's money to be made especially in the early in the early years trying to help people understand when to get out of the market potentially or to sell you know yeah so so that's why this i that's why i think really thinking through the populations but then this idea of being able to secure some of the tax revenues for for specific programs i think that's something that's probably a bit more enduring if we imagine a world where there's a lot of commercialization um that said i don't know if uh Vermont if there could be any allowances for kind of county run stores or state stores um but if that's a possibility it's i think it's something that's worth exploring they're pros and cons um but it's a way to secure more money more revenue for the state that can be used to equity for equity programs and uh in other efforts well i feel like i could ask you questions all day bo but i know we're we're a little yeah no no she's leading is fantastic and i know many of you i mean she's been so helpful um as i've been kind of thinking about these issues and so i don't want to take away from any of her time so so i want to thank you so much for this opportunity like i said it's great to be back in Vermont and yeah reach out if you have any other questions i want to help out in any way i can thank you both thank you guys bye shaleen are you here thank you here i'm here hi hi so i think we'll we'll dive right in shaleen i um i don't have a prepared introduction for you although i also don't know where i would start with the resume that you bring to the table in terms of your experience in cannabis regulation and the equity and and the conversations that you and i have had about them um so i will kind of let you take it away and you know you can introduce yourself and um and kind of share your your information and knowledge with us great great thank you so much for having me um it's nice to see you all i think i know of all of you i've only talked and talked to julie before um so i will give you a brief presentation and then i'm i'm really happy to answer questions i mean i think a lot of it will just be telling you how we did things in messachusetts and letting you customize that um but i do want to give a big shout out to vermont in particular and the reason is um i've been since my term ended at the end of last year i have shifted my focus to federal legalization and particularly worrying about what it's going to do to state programs and state equity programs and um one of the things i've been looking at is the model of actually just legalizing possession just taking possession and limited cultivation out of the controlled substances act and then taking it slow otherwise and to my knowledge vermont is the only state to have done that um and it's great to have that model so um i have some slides um that i asked nelly to show for me if she could because i'm scared of sharing her screen and i don't know how to do it um and i'll go through um kind of what the best practices are thank you so much nelly so this is um what we know so far about cannabis and social equity which is not um any conclusions but a lot of good information um so i'll just briefly introduce myself so from 2017 to 2020 i served as commissioner of messachusetts cannabis control commission we have um five commissioners um it's an independent agency and we were appointed based on five different um expertise areas i think i think similar to you all um so mine was uh social justice and i'm currently um a visiting fellow at the drug enforcement and policy center at the ohio state university and i also vice chair the cannabis regulators of color coalition which exists to do um activities like this and make sure that you know that you are not alone and we are sharing everything that we've learned in other states that have done this first so um moving on to the next uh summary big picture that we have um if we look at what has happened in other states um like i said there's no conclusion but we've gone a long way since um five years ago when messachusetts and california first attempted um equity and i just want to emphasize that we did not get it right the first time it was a continuous process of listening changing figuring out what the challenges were figuring out what the new challenges were after we had made changes and then addressing them but best practices are starting to emerge data is starting to look better the top three takeaways i think are one um you can't think of an equity program as a separate thing that you're doing you have to build a foundation right first or otherwise it will never work the second thing is that when it comes to what the benefits are um what the eligibility is uh how you define someone who was harmed by the drug war um i think there's no one right answer i think the right approach to take is to make sure you're listening and that you are being very transparent about it but it's always going to be different for different states and then of course like i said keep uh planning in advance um to making adjustments and i think a part of that is um being clear you know we'll collect data and then in six months you know we'll have a listening session um go i don't know if your statute has you go back regularly um to discuss or recommend statutory tweaks but if it does um i think you should plan for needing those um and then of course uh you're not alone all of the other regulators are here to talk you through this because it's not easy so let's start with that foundation um the first thing is making sure that you are understanding um how big the question is right like regulating cannabis in general uh is really difficult but i think this is the most difficult aspect because how can we repair the harm that's done um by the war on drugs it was it had its has its tentacles in every single area of our lives and so we're never going to be able to harm it unless we can do the exact same thing and there's only so much you can do as a cannabis commissioner so just understand um your role in it and i think acknowledging the harm that was done goes a long way and then listening to people from impacted communities um in the beginning when i started the chairman of the commission who was very different from me like in pretty much every possible way we kind of went on a little tour together of disproportionately impacted areas and we talked to a lot of people um about just broadly what their their vision was you know what do they see as the harm what do they see as repairing the harm and i found over time he and i were very often on the same page and i and no one else was and i often look back and think it might have been because of those few days that we spent going on that tour and keeping keeping up that communication um this is an important bullet point um it's helpful to think about equity in three different ways the first way is stopping the harm and i think that is where criminal justice measures are really important making sure disparities don't continue um expungement anything that has to do with the criminal justice system that's usually going to be out of the scope of you know business licensing but i think it's important to acknowledge that piece of it the second is reinvesting into communities and that means if you are from a community that was harmed it doesn't matter if you are interested in the industry or not you should be getting benefits into your community and typically in the newer states and i'm sorry i don't know how this is done in vermont but in the newer states it's usually a percentage of revenue 40 50 70 percent of tax revenue are the most recent figures that are directed via grants into disproportionately harmed communities and then industry benefits and i think that's what commissions like ours have the most control over but it's really important to recognize that that's just one piece of equity so on that note creating a cohesive set of licensing frameworks social equity programs and workforce development to ensure meaningful participation meaningful participation happens to be the mandate that was in our statute um so we spend a lot of time thinking about what that means and in our listening tours um our official ones we heard a lot that there was no one size fits all um some people wanted to be entrepreneurs actually the vast majority of people who attended wanted to be entrepreneurs but a lot of people wanted to be um managers or move up in the industry or own ancillary businesses um and many wanted to um just have entry or reentry programs so we ended up creating all four of those as separate tracks in our equity program so after thinking about how to approach it um this is the necessary foundational work and this is i think the most key piece that gets missed a lot um and i i liken it to if your social equity program is trying to help people to cross the bridge but you have not built the bridge yet your program is not going to work so this part is building the bridge sequential licensing is extremely important so i just finished up a project uh with with um the Ohio State University looking at different social equity programs and how they have fared and i found that the thing that all of them had in common um that made them not a success is the fact that no matter what was going on with the program that caused the challenges while they were having challenges the other bigger usually established medical operators were able to open and so a lot of that i think is due to the excellent advice to start small right and then go incrementally and i think that's absolutely the way you should go but you should start with those marginalized equity businesses first and that is going to allow you to see the challenges they are absolutely going to be unforeseen challenges that you'll need to address and while you are doing that you won't have other companies that are dominating the industry until it's too late which is something that we have seen in a lot of places which brings me to my next bullet point um we got very lucky in massachusetts because that's what happened but we have a strict ownership uh limit where one person or entity cannot own or control more than three licenses of each type and it's a lot of investment on the commission to examine those contracts and make sure that there are penalties if you don't uh if you try to break the limits i think that's actually something that's going on in massachusetts right now um they're having a meeting with some pretty major enforcement penalties and if you do that then you have the room to make an equity program that works guidance for local officials that is super important because they don't have the time that we have you know to spend all our time thinking about this and so what happens is they go through this uh default kind of path where it's not intentional racism but it's systemic that you were likely to go with the company that's going to approach you that has experience that has a great um you know multi-state plan they're ready to go and you haven't even thought about equity right because you're this very busy you know city level official and you're just trying to do what's right for your residents and then you find out when it's too late that you haven't been equitable and neither have you know the hundreds of other cities so doing that off the bat is really helpful even just a model ordinance or any kind of guidance that you can give conscious staff hiring really really important i think that the first hires that you make is probably the most important decision that you'll make in terms of how equity plays out because it's something that you need to think about in every small decision and commissioners can't control for that you can only hire the right people who are going to hire the right people who are going to bake equity into everything you do and then last um this is conceptual but removing the barriers to entry um as much as you can is of course going to reduce the capital that is needed and in general make it easier for everybody but um especially those who are disproportionately advantaged and for whom these barriers are more more um difficult than others so you know trying to make sure that all of your regulations are evidence based and that um you're thinking about people who don't have a lot of resources so that brings us to the big questions um designing an equity program so the most common factors um when you're defining how to identify someone as a disproportionately harmed person is arrests and convictions that's the most direct way um certainly no matter where they're from or what their life is like if they've had an arrest or conviction um from marijuana it has affected their life and then residency is also very popular um the imperfect but common standard is uh to designate based on arrest records and other um similar statistics areas of disproportionate impact geographically and then if you can prove residency in five of the past 10 years you qualify so in massachusetts we have both of those as well as if you can show that you have a parent or a spouse that had a drug arrest then you qualify as an individual and that gets you into the training programs um and then as a business if your majority owned by people who meet that criteria then you get the business benefits and then we also have um less significant benefits if you're 10 or more owned by those people um so that we can encourage uh ownership as a type of compensation but we're also differentiating between those who are majority owned and those who are not so with the benefits um i can say over time every program that has tried to do this has um had more drastic benefits being added being added because we're not seeing it work right so it's like every year there is a higher floor for the minimum that you need to do for an equity program i think the best one so far is oakland california it's very comprehensive um and one thing they've done a great job is legal services accounting services other professional services for those applicants uh in oakland and in boston a few other cities um they have 50 percent of licenses set aside for people in the program um in massachusetts at the state level we don't have any set number of how many businesses there will be so instead we set aside a license type um which is delivery and social consumption um and delivery has been implemented at this point and our thinking there was that uh it's the lowest barrier type of license so for the first three years um only if you are one of these designated businesses owned by the people who qualify you can deliver and then after three years we set in advance a list of um criteria for the commission to determine whether we've met the goals because chances are it's going to be completely different commissioners at that point so they look at the data they decide has this worked if it hasn't they continue it and maybe add even more benefits if it has then they let other businesses come in um the role of other non-social equity businesses you're going to find a lot of different opinions on um my personal opinion is that the government is the one that has caused the harms by the war on drugs and the resources to fix it and the one that works for the public um so i think that it makes sense for the government to be the one to fix the harms um but some states have a role for corporations um i think probably one of the best ones is what they have in Oakland where you get a licensing benefit if you incubate a business by giving them part of your property and that part is really important because property is probably after capital the most difficult barrier for applicants it's very difficult to find one that's zoned properly once you do um the rent is going to be 10 times higher than it would otherwise and so um if you're an applicant and you can get some benefits from the state and then you can get property from another business i think that's a really good combination and then finally um i think evaluation and adjustment is uh something that can make and break your program especially if you are clear with communication from the beginning i think that's another thing we learned in massachusetts is we set expectations really high um but people uh felt that it didn't work you know overnight and then we think we lost some credibility at that point so i wish we had said this hasn't worked very well in other states we couldn't get the time because we were the first but you could say you know here's our plan we're going to come back you know in this many months and listen to your challenges and and change our regulations and just be clear about that from the beginning there might be all my slides yes so happy to take your questions now thank you shallene i really appreciate you taking the time um uh one of the things that i i mentioned to you before um was about trust so you know we're asking folks to come from a legacy market into a regulated market and maybe they haven't had a great experience in the criminal justice system or they you know intentionally um operating outside of you know a typical system um and it sounds like there are some ways to build trust um i wonder if the tour that you went on that you spoke about it was that an effort to build trust or are there other things that you know other commissions have done to build trust that's such a good question i'm really glad that's what you're thinking about right now um we had both an official listening session and then kind of an unofficial tour so the listening session was of course open to everybody um and we took care to put it um in the areas where the people we were trying to reach were um and then we got yelled at rightfully because we we did it during the day during work hours um so I was like okay here's our first example of listening to you is we're gonna hold another one we're gonna hold it at night and then a lot more people came and then um we talked to the people who are already doing the work because I think if you are trying to make your own credibility that's a lot more difficult than if you can connect with people who already have credibility and you can show them like the first time you meet them they have no reason to trust you why should they but if they say here's something you can implement and then you do it and you go back to them um that trust is going to eventually filter to you great thank you um pepper kyle susanna nader i'm not sure if you're still here are any questions so let me just jump in if you don't mind um shillene thank you so much for being here i just wanted to introduce um susanna davis is our state the state of vermont uh racial equity director and she um has been charged in our enabling legislation to help us define social equity applicant and develop some social equity programs so we've asked her to join us as kind of an honorary board member today um just so that she can tap into your knowledge as well um and nader um hashim is um former representative former state police who you know really has led the effort in the legislature on criminal justice reform in a lot of different ways and he was recently appointed by the speaker of the house to be our um to our advisory committee in the capacity of a person with expertise in systemic social justice and equity issues and so we also invited him here today because he'll be helping with this um this piece of our work as well um and i would like to thank you for being here so much i'd like to put a plug in for your social equity 2.0 um webinar series you know i look forward to those more than almost anything else that i listened to and it really clued me into a few issues that i just was not aware of and i'd like to ask you about if you don't mind um um so the one is related to the kind of community co community host agreements and um local control and how that impacts the ability to deliver on the social equity and economic empowerment uh you know promises that are in the legislation that we have at least and if i don't if you don't mind me kind of piggybacking on that also um another issue that you um kind of cued me into um in your conversations with uh in your first um social equity 2.0 was around um limiting predatory practices against social equity applicants um and kind of these you know lending agreements that maybe means that you're a 51 percent owner but oh by the way you know you're actually you know taking loans from people that are um you know amassing your profits essentially so if you wouldn't mind just speaking about those two issues the kind of local control and the kind of predatory lending practices if you wouldn't mind absolutely yeah um and thank you for watching those sessions you were absolutely the target audience i'm glad it was helpful um i also wanted to say to uh susanna that i saw um or at least i read a live tweeted thread of her last presentation i thought it was excellent and and very much on point so um so yeah these are two big red flags host community agreements and predatory practices so host community agreements in massachusetts were meant to be an agreement between a business and a community that would cover things like signage and um hours of operation and what you know a local community should control and it would also allow the business to reimburse the city for any um costs that came up uh like uh traffic studies or extra security on opening day but what happened was the cities ended up just charging whatever they wanted um to the businesses and over time uh it's very much been abused um and it really prevented our our equity program from succeeding so um i thought a lot about this and i think there are two ways you could go um and one is the legislative route and trying to make sure that at the very least um municipalities have the same consistent equity mandate as at the state level and then also incentives on top of that maybe if it's something very small like we have a three percent local tax but if it was just uh you know one more percent of the state tax which is another 17 if that was shifted to municipalities for each dollar um that comes in to an equity business in a town i think that would be really helpful and the reason i phrase it that way is because there are a hundred different barriers that take place that you can't predict until they actually open and so once you get to that point where they actually open and you're getting the incentive at that point now the municipalities have a reason to help versus you know you trying to legislate every one of those barriers um that's one but i know that everywhere but especially in new england you know it's it's very difficult to to legislate that that sort of balance so instead um it would be so helpful if you just um to the extent you can invest in providing guidance to the people who do want to help at the local level and it might even be as simple as you know helping one city to do it right you know and then once they do it right making sure that that model ordinance is available to everybody um and you know nonprofits at the local level advocacy groups they can really be helpful you know as in getting people involved in the process so if you can't reach the local officials if you reach them through you know their constituents i've seen that be really successful here but just thinking about it from the beginning i think you're going to ahead of the game and of course we can share you know ordinances from boston, cambridge, oakland all of these places that have done it really well so predatory practices that's the other one um you know i think there's a difference between what's actually written right on the paper in terms of your regulations and then what's done in practice and this was really key for us because we have that ownership limit but we could have just taken it you know at the letter of the law and said well if you're not you know a written owner or written you know controller of this company then you know it's not a problem and just let it go and if we had done that i think that none of our equity businesses would have actually been run by the people you know who are purportedly running it it took a lot of work um to hire a contractor an accounting firm to check the uh the contracts and then also um this goes back to the trust that julie was asking about because you really need the businesses who are being approached with these practices to feel comfortable coming to you and that's like i think the by far the way that we found out about this was the businesses would tell us hey this other company approached me and they offered me this um and sometimes you know they're real slick about it they'll like say i won't talk to you unless we sign an nda and these companies really need capital right so they're incentivized to be part of this they're not incentivized necessarily to come and tell you know the government about it but if you create that trust and you're very clear that you are going to enforce this and you know you have to be the company that is actually running the company um that's clear and then the one very important thing i will close with on that is you have to think about which party is going to be the one to face the consequences if this does happen and if it just if it's just that the smaller company loses their license that's not really fair um so i would think about writing into your regulations that if you are a bigger company and you approach a smaller company with something that is attempting to circumvent um you know the eligible eligibility requirements for the equity program then you would face penalties for that and we have a lot of language written on that that took years of refining that we can share with you thank you hi shallene kyle here is here it's great to meet you and as james alluded to earlier i'm a big fan of a lot of your work i'm glad that you just mentioned consequences for this predatory atmosphere and who's actually responsible because that's something that i'm continuously thinking about um i was you got my brain spinning in a good way when i looked at your you described your multi-tiered equity program i think that's really really cool and i'm interested to kind of dig in more to that and figuring out how we can right size something like that um for a state up here to help businesses or entrepreneurs or individual interested folks you know depending on where they're at and what they're trying to accomplish um i had a a question and i recognize you worked for the state and not cities or municipalities in massachusetts but but boston setting aside i think you said 50 licenses for social equity applicants and you might not be at liberty to know too much about how they got to that number or um the legal risk that that boston may be willing to take on and we heard from bo kilmer and we we know that there's jurisdictions that you know are more hesitant than others on how they what words they use describe things so on and so forth my my only and i'm i'm not necessarily overly cautious i want i want this to be a big part of what we're doing but i also don't want to advise i'll call municipalities in vermont and not necessarily cities based on our size um to go ahead and pursue some type of localized program like that uh recognizing that it could open up a can of legal worms that that they might not be equipped to really respond to in a way that will keep the integrity of what they're trying to do at a local level absolutely that's a great question um i can definitely speak to that because we spent a lot of time um both at the state level and then helping out cities so i think that um what you don't what would be the most legally risky is if you have a specific licensing quota based on race which is what ohio did um granted at that time we didn't have data on the industry and now you have data on the industry so i think it's a lot less risky now than it was back then but it's still the most risky option um what we did was uh for our economic empowerment program which is is very similar to the equity program we came up with six criteria and one of them is black and latino descent specifically and that was based on well documented data that every state has that shows that the war on drugs has been disproportionately um waged against those communities but the other criteria where things like um residency arrests and who you hired so you could qualify in a variety of ways and i think that's really the key question is can you still qualify if you are not black or latino and i think that helps um lower your risk the other thing that helps lower your risk is if you have a lot of um evidence that this was based on data so we um we commissioned a report and then we just now after several years they commissioned another report we had a lot of discussion about it in public so if anyone um questions you know how we came up with those those areas or those races you know they'll be able to do it in some places it's indigenous populations as well depending on on what it looks like um the other thing i want to note is that in Cambridge they only allowed economic empowerment applicants for the first two years and medical operators in the state did sue and it was eventually dropped after a backlash but before it was dropped um there was a motion for summary judgment that was denied and it did suggest that the state's program was going to be held up because it was not a race quota so i think it's important to um i'll just quickly recap so you should be able to qualify in ways other than race it should be well documented that's it thank you so much i have more if uh but susanna not her i don't and i i'm actually i have to jump um come wait for a different board meeting but i just wanted to say thank you so much this has been really really insightful inside insightful um really appreciated thank you very much and thank you to the board for for inviting me reach out to me anytime that can be helpful i just wanted to also say thanks and some of my thoughts were mostly swirling around the predatory practices which which has been discussed at length so i don't want to uh beat a dead horse or anything like that but thank you sure i can add one more thing on that um we found what i was talking to regulators in other places um we found that people were trying the exact same approaches here in california illinois um that i would have otherwise never known about if the regulators in those places hadn't told me so it's good to to be in contact about that too so i had a question just um our legislation um kind of demands that we move very quickly uh you know we were supposed to kind of be sad on a specific day and then within four weeks have an executive director and then within two months have the whole structure of the market figured out and then you know go through a flawless rulemaking process you know all kind of trying to go to a specific date where we had to open kind of our retail stores um we are behind schedule um pretty significantly and i'm just wondering you know i know massachusetts was behind schedule a little bit as well and i'm wondering how these sort of aggressive deadlines that um are kind of expected of the board i know you know you had a ballot initiative which kind of set the date where you also were supposed to get going but um how do these aggressive deadlines impact social equity applicants and our ability to kind of deliver on these social equity um kind of undergirdings of our of our statute without question those are opposing forces because the faster you go the more you need to default to systemic things already in place that already favor big corporations and do not favor equity businesses um so anything that you can do to make sure that it's the equity businesses that open first even if that takes longer uh is really going to help and um i know at the time it is not you um the the legislation that they windows that they put out are just totally unrealistic and i know at the time i was trying to balance those forces if i could go back i would have said it's a matter of a few months and it is a matter of future generations that are counting on us just like with alcohol prohibition so you know everybody can just calm down for a few months i wish i'd said that more yeah that's that i'm you know i we don't have a general council yet we don't have an executive director yet i'm trying to um you know use my whatever platform i have right now to hopefully try and reset expectations and kind of get people to realize that you know it's not if if this legislation calls for us to prioritize social equity applicants and to provide um services for them we got to make sure those services are available um and that uh we can actually deliver on some of that um and not just focus so squarely on the deadlines that are in our legislation right this is more of a messaging thing than a policy thing but i often found that um in the public discussion the the business profits and the rights of consumers would get conflated and people would act like if the stores weren't open you know people were still being arrested and that's that's not the case you know like stopping arrest is an immediate need um but business is making money is is not yeah you know i think it also somewhat ties into the the piece that you did about sequential licensing and maybe you weren't talking about this but offering you know making sure that people that are cultivating um have a place to process and test and then you know a retail operation and making sure that you know we're aware of the growth cycle versus how long it takes to actually set up a retail operation and how long you know the test thing is going to take and whether we have the capacity to even test you know i'm making a note to add that so when i talk about the sequential i think because i think we kind of dropped the ball on that i mean that's a really important point yeah thank you yeah it makes us nervous a little bit yep yeah i think natter has a question thank you um one one thought just pops into my head um kind of onto a different track um regarding arrests after um commercialization i was wondering if you found that people who were using marijuana i don't know if you have these this data in front of you but if people who were using cannabis were still finding themselves uh being arrested or investigated for other for other issues um that so i'm trying to find out how to phrase is the best way but people who were using cannabis getting investigated because they were using cannabis even though it was legal at the time and being investigated for other crimes sorry if i didn't articulate that very well but that makes any sense no you are doing that perfectly well um yeah i don't have the the data in front of me but i can tell you from my my personal knowledge and memory because we did have we do have a research department um that under our statute had to research these issues and do reports and present them to the commission and the public so um i would say no for that part and not because of um us or the law but because we have in my opinion excellent supreme judicial court in messachusetts that does not allow things like um the order of marijuana to be used um for us and so and of course after legalization you know possession possession arrest went down you couldn't profile people that way um and i don't know any way that that continued but what we did see was um in terms of trafficking distribution um the disparities either stayed the same or they got worse um and you know police training did not fix that and legalization did not fix that so i would say that um you know it didn't fix the profiling but it it did stop the arrests and anything that would be based on possession or consumption arrests so did i hear the um the kind of enforcement of the illicit market the kind of distribute the distribution and the um trafficking increased in massachusetts following kind of the opening of retail stores no no no the the disparities the racial disparities did so it was still disproportionately black and latino people who were being arrested for that and maybe at a higher rate um and that that reports on the the commission website um as far as enforcement of the illicit market there was actually um a concerted lobbying effort by the legal dispensaries to crack down on the illicit market um and i think the general consensus was that that was absolutely premature um and that was really unfair to legacy operators that did not have a pathway to the legal market yet and once you create that pathway then you can start thinking about enforcement other question i have so much to think about right now any other questions from um our group no i mean is it i know you offered susana but i mean are you available as a resource kind of offline if things come up there's nothing better i could do with my time honestly that i could think of so absolutely yes yeah thank you for for for that offer i think after all our presentations but especially hearing from you and boha my head is swimming with ideas that i hope are good ones but you know recognizing that people probably had those ideas in other states and some have been great and some have not worked out as as envisioned itself well i will leave you with this um first you might want to go to the mass cannabis control commission website and just browse through those reports they're like hundreds of pages long but they'll they'll spark these ideas and then the second thing is do not be afraid to innovate and experiment because i mean a lot of this stuff you know colorado ten years ago said six plans so we said six plans but it's a completely arbitrary number right so someone just made things up so you shouldn't feel free to make things up too see how it goes very good thank you so much thank you thank you pepper i'll turn it back to you i think the last thing on our agenda is public comment unless there's something else that we should discuss um no i mean again it's uh incredible to have those resources all of our witnesses today thank you julie for taking the lead on putting that group together um we will be meeting next week uh on thursday we will likely very likely uh have a physical location somewhere uh in Montpelier potentially at our office building um if we have access by then and um but we'll keep folks posted and if anyone again wants to receive updates about the board's work we do have a online portal where you can kind of submit your email address and we'll we'll make sure that we communicate with you about any you know information that comes up not our thanks for joining us feel free to stick around for public comment and it's really great to have you helping us out and i you know i i don't know if you want to say a little bit about yourself i hate to put you on the spot but um i have a tremendous amount of respect for for you and the work you've done both as a state trooper and in the legislature oh thank you james um yeah you know i i came into this position pretty quickly i think i was appointed officially yesterday um you know my i'll just briefly describe my background um i was a state trooper for seven and a half years i was a drug recognition expert during that time and you know partway through my career my i started really seeing the impact of the war on drugs on people and started seeing how those disparities were playing out and that led me into a different direction which got me into the legislature where i served on the judiciary committee and now i'm working as a paralegal halfway toward halfway to becoming a lawyer but working as a paralegal right now at a law firm in braddleboro and you know i'm just really excited to be back at the table and yeah i i look forward to this work unfortunately i do have to hop off and go back to my other job but um i do appreciate the opportunity to be here for a little while at least thank you thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for joining us and i love work so um i think unless kyle or julia if anything left to add i think we will go to public comment and that will be our last agenda item for the day so again if you have a comment we're going to start with the folks that joined through the link um and can raise their virtual hands and then we'll move to the folks on the phone after after that and i know that we kind of had to bump a few people uh last time so i'll start with you david hello again um i just wanted to acknowledge uh two social groups that deserve to be part of this equity conversation that weren't brought up the first one being in the northeast kingdom is the rural equity issue and however amazing the presenters in their testimony has been there were a few things that did not acknowledge um the importance of this market in terms of keeping money in the community for example when bo kilmer was talking about uh limiting the initial licensing for retail operations i would imagine if you are only going to issue out say half a dozen licenses to begin with um the northeast kingdom wouldn't get one because disproportionately we are a very small population um uh considering you know the state um there are already people here who are who are planning on opening stores are are hoping to get a license um you know but we're what 45 000 people so um i would really hope that this marketplace from the cultivation standpoint and the retail standpoint um if if the money can circulate within the region right so the growers the cultivators in the northeast kingdom can sell to uh retail operations in the northeast kingdom and that money stay in the northeast kingdom rather than going off to montpelier or um you know burlington area um it would be really unfortunate to see you know a bunch of our residents have to drive out there to spend their money i think also um most of them wouldn't drive out there to spend their money they would spend their money in the black market and i think part of what we're trying to do here is prevent that from happening um i i also want to bring up another um demographic group that that has not been recognized at all in this um and i'm not exactly sure if they can be the same way that people of color um and some of the more impacted groups uh can be acknowledged um as as priorities but um you know we're we're 50 years uh since the commencement of the war on drugs but we're also this year just in a few months 30 years from the first legal retail cannabis outlet in the united states uh that that was the cannabis buyers club in san francisco which opened in 1991 uh due to uh san francisco's proposition p um it was uh voted with 80 percent uh support uh denis perone um a gay man um opened up the club with the intent of supplying people dying of AIDS um with with the ability to die with dignity um and so you know the lgbtq community has been at the forefront of of this they are the pioneers of this and um i don't know if there's a way that that can be acknowledged in this legislation um but um i think it needs to be said there were a few other things here that that concerned me um erica um who spoke it and i don't mean to just call her by her first name i i just don't know her last name but she mentioned cannabis as being a hallucinogen that's a dated term um cannabis is not a hallucinogen um it is a powerful medicine it is a powerful drug however comparing uh the sale of cannabis to that of a pharmacy i think is a real error um you know pharmacies offer thousands of of drugs tens of thousands of drugs we're only talking about one i'm going to emphasize my opinion here that a uh retail operation is going to be not too far from that of a liquor store or a bar um and her comment about um um prioritizing people who are who are entrenched in the community who are invested in the community i want to point out that that is a privilege it's a privilege to be invested in the community uh people who have time and money can afford to be invested in the community we're trying to give an opportunity to people who are otherwise not have the time and income to be invested in the community an opportunity to be invested so um and then the idea of keeping out um out of state people who are people of color people with prior convictions we want to attract a lot of this energy to our state we want this state to grow we want taxpayers here we want to we want these laws to attract not only tourists but people who are um going to invest in this as an industry um and the best way to do that is to open up these priority groups not only to people in in-state but but people who are willing to come here to move here to bring their money to bring their knowledge and to bring their um their their their demographic their diversity right um yep i think thank you David yeah thank you very much for that yeah thank you uh grim thank you i recognize i already spoke um and i will do my best to to limit my comments i want to thank Shaylene and and Bo for for their time and their expertise here today um and i was i think most of my responses at this point are just some of the things that Bo um said you spoke to sort of a bipolarity of profit maximization in the industry versus government stores and i think that there's some middle ground uh there and i think that's in the scale appropriate regulations that we've articulated he spoke to limiting the number of licenses and i think that's one way of addressing um production but you can also limit the scale of licenses so in our recommendations which you know or you've seen we limit we recommend a craft scale of licensure and if you want if you're concerned about overproduction you could start with the craft scale of licensure there's craft retailers there's craft deliveries and we would recommend that there be no limits on the number of those licenses um there's a limit on scale and those retailers can only buy from craft producers and that would be one way of limiting the possibility of overproduction and equitably distributing to the smallest scale of folks which is also the most accessible scale of license uh i was also really surprised that um zoning wasn't spoken to by either of the guests as a barrier but i did catch that shaleen mentioned that um one of the main barriers was zoning and that it um that in fact the cost of property that was a properly zoned for cannabis production went up substantially so i think that's one of the potential unintended consequences here is by saying you can't have this in agricultural land or residential areas you are encouraging development in commercial areas you could otherwise have a plant going in the ground and i think one of the most accessible someone also spoke to the low cost of delivery licenses it's also extremely low cost to just put plants in the ground you don't need to build a warehouse you can have a small license and just put plants in the ground and i think we're ignoring that i'd love to hear their comments on a lot of the scale appropriate regulations we have put forth differentiating between indoor and outdoor um testing wasn't mentioned and i know all the growers we've spoken to have mentioned testing as a as a point a entry a barrier to entry um he mentioned uh increased enforcement's could help equity licenses potentially and i think that really is making some assumptions about who constitutes the legacy market and not acknowledging the inequity of their positionality and the goal of bringing them in right away shaleen spoke well to this to some extent um but i think you know one of the issues we're already facing is that these people are feeling like they're being treated as criminals they're not comfortable necessarily coming to talk to you they're not comfortable necessarily coming to talk to the legislature and they're sort of being treated that way still and have that stigma attached to them um he talked about employment reduction uh as a potential result of legalization and i think um he also mentioned like legal large licenses and efficiency and i think that really again speaks to the importance of small licenses in businesses in a number of licenses as opposed to the scale um we can't control federal legalization but we can certainly provide an equitable and scale appropriate model and encourage supply management you know in agriculture we see these models in canada and other parts of the world that try to bring more equity to markets we can set an example here in Vermont of what a national market could look like and we can position people in the small business side um to be prepared um we've already talked about appellations a little bit with you in a new end uh in our conversations with the head of the humble growers alliance they talked about them looking towards that as a way of um achieving some equity for for folks uh going forward at the small scale um i'm also for example i'm a small beef producer in one of the most concentrated sectors of the u.s food economy i am able to make even uh able to participate in that because i have access to direct sales um and if this were an agriculturally designated crop for outdoor production those people would also have access to direct sales you could certainly limit what that would look like etc he mentioned using revenue to address inequity outside of access to the industry shaleen did too and i really think that's a place where you all can act the legislature chose not to and sort of dismissed that idea but i think it's really critical um and i am i am a vermont i grew up in vermont and i absolutely do not support you know prioritizing people who have lived here for a certain period of time i think as was said by the last speaker um giving people regardless of where they're from opportunity to engage in this industry equitably with others is is really critical um and i'll leave time for others to speak there great thank you graham and i know that you know like all of your public comments you're giving us some big ideas to think about um and uh we do intend to kind of engage in a much more granular level on some of the ideas that are being brought before us over these um set of initial meetings once we have our stakeholder process or you know state advisory committee and we have an executive director and consultant in place so we can really start to do the work of the board um is there anyone else um that joined via the link that would like to provide public comment and if you could just raise your virtual hand if so we have um one person it looks like who's joined by phone um if you would like to provide public comment um you can unmute yourself by hitting star six okay well thank you um again julie thank you kyle thank you to all of our presenters it's been um incredibly powerful day and in my in my impression um we've learned a lot today um next week uh we'll probably be meeting same time um thursday uh roughly nine to two and um there aren't any further comments from the board um i will entertain a motion to adjourn uh i'll move to adjourn second all in favor hi hi hi okay um nely could you please stop the recording and um sign off when you're ready