 Okay, we're recording great. My name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the remote control board. It's Monday, March 7 11am. And I call this meeting to work. So first thing I need to add an item to today's agenda. We're going to take a second look at our health warning and consider a possible amendment. It's in Rule 2. So I'd like to add that after we do the walkthrough of 3 and 4 but before public comments. So I guess the big news since we last met is roughly 40 towns voted on town meeting day to permit retail cannabis shops within their borders and the overwhelming majority of those towns voted yes in favor. And we know that there are a lot of questions that that raises for these towns and also the prospective licensees about the local control issues. We do work fairly closely with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns so that they are a good resource to reach out to about these issues. We also have an FAQ document on the home screen of our website. It's ccb.vermont.gov and you know those have answers to most of the frequently asked questions. And you can also always submit additional questions to the board. We do all look at those questions when we see kind of reoccurring themes. We try to create new FAQ responses to those. We also have our next social equity and economic empowerment networking event on Thursday this Thursday March 10th from 5 to 7 p.m. It's a totally virtual event. We don't have in-person attendance of those. The link the RSVP is available on our website. The topic this week is going to be about energy and sustainability issues that are in our rules. Kyle if you want to just say a little bit more about... Yeah well I'm excited to take my time to facilitate a meeting that we want to call on these really awesome events. We're going to have Barry Murphy from the Public Service Department there who did a lot of heavy lifting when it came to informing the board and our subcommittee when it comes to energy regulations and you know we adopted a lot of PSDs you know the suggestions that they gave the subcommittee to look over before it came to the board. We'll also have Jacob Pulitzer from the Cannabis Conservancy. He was our our leader on the environmental sustainability subcommittee and he again has been working in this industry for a considerable amount of time you know as an energy-focused guy. So Barry and Jacob are going to tag team trying to demystify what some of the terminology means trying to help folks get comfortable with some of the requirements and Barry can kind of signal how his department really looks to help people understand when you know CVs apply something along those lines. So I'm excited about having them there to kind of help people get comfortable with the requirements. We're also going to have a team from Efficiency Vermont there that will give a broad presentation on their various different rebates and services and programs that they offer and then you know I've heard that they're looking to make some special accommodations for social equity applicants. So before which is really exciting and they're really happy to do so. So we'll learn more about all that on Thursday. I'm looking forward to it. That's great. Yeah just a reminder we don't record those sessions you know they are designed to help kind of facilitate open conversation and so you know please just sign up and try and join even if it's just on in the background while you're cooking dinner or something like that. We are about this kind of very important aspect of the industry. So just the last announcement again is just that our pre-qualification application window opens on March 16th. We have some good information up on our website about what that means and what's going to be required in that stage. There's still a few issues that we're working out internally so we're not ready to open it right now but we'll open it on March 16th. It's just a basic kind of overview. We expect to have an online form. There will be kind of a paper backup if that's what people want to use but you know we will have you can apply online to our website. The fee will also probably most likely be online with kind of a backup of money orders or checks which will have more guidance about as the date approaches. Because we don't have our federal authorization from the FBI quite yet we are going to need to do fingerprints both for pre-qualification if you choose to be pre to pre-qualify and at the kind of operational licensing application stage. So and you also have to kind of go through VCIC their website and kind of do a Vermont based background check. So it's a little bit frustrating that that's the case just that you know you know folks that are looking to do this will have to kind of get fingerprinted twice but that's just the kind of state of things currently. And you know beyond that we're just asking that you submit a basic operating plan. All this will be laid out in the application itself and again there's some very helpful guidance on our website about what we're looking for and what this means and just a reminder that this is a voluntary process. We're not there's no need to pre-qualify especially if you're a small cultivator and looking to apply in April. You know pre-qualification probably is not the right move but you can do whatever you like. Other than that I think just we need to approve the minutes from our last meeting which I believe was February 22nd, 2022. You guys had a chance to look those over? Yep. Take a motion to approve? Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay let's move to the agenda then. Today we're going to do a walkthrough of the kind of remaining issues, the kind of final sweep of public comments around rules three and four and hopefully get those voted on today so they can move on ahead. Thanks so. Some of those final changes? Yes, let me plug in here and get going. We'll go through like we have in the past and just note what the changes are. And we'll be looking up here at a clean copy of the rule subsequent to the changes as adopted by or not yet adopted but as discussed by the board regarding the various public comment requests. I'm just pulling up my documents here. So there were not a huge amount as you as folks remember not a huge amount on rule three but I'll just go through the few that we had and there's some stuff that's really purely technical or grammatical with a couple things that I won't bother talking too much about but if you have any questions, board have any questions let me know. So first change we have here is the definitions. This is actually a comment that was given to rule four but is applies to rule three as well. A commenter noted that it would make sense to have the caregiver definition track more closely with the patient definition. Patient definition as you'll see talks about or defines it as somebody who has a registration card board agree that that made sense to use that format and the caregiver definition as well. So the caregiver excuse me caregiver definition now reads caregiver means the resident of Vermont has been issued a caregiver registration card by the board identifying person as someone who has agreed to undertake responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient with respect to the use of cannabis or cannabis products for symptom relief. So that is change one move along here. We have a ways to go to get to the next one. We're looking at we're going to look at 3.5.3. We'll get there 3.5.3. There we go. So this was a question about maintaining records and a commenter had noted that maintaining records is not part of the adult maintaining records of people who purchase cannabis at retail establishments is not part of the adult use scheme and questioning about whether that needed to remain in the scheme for dispensaries and the way this was written it sort of exempted anything that was an integrated license from that. So had turned it into a really narrow piece. I think some feedback we are and I should say this is an open question in the at the end of the last board meeting about what to do and we wanted to gather some information from medical staff. Medical staff had noted that there is good enforcement reason to want to ensure that people who are buying product from medical dispensaries are in fact patients because patients do get to do they have access to products that the general adult use market does not have access to and also have access to things like delivery and so forth that the adult use market does not currently have access to. And so for that reason they noted that there could be some enforcement benefit to retaining this requirement. In accordance with that comment this read now read the following I wanted to make it so that there was if we were going to have the requirement it made sense to have it exist for any patient not including people that integrated licensees. So it now reads a record shall be maintained of all individuals who purchase cannabis or cannabis products from the dispensary provided that when an integrated licensee operates a dispensary location that also serves an adult use retail location records related to adult use customers shall not violate the provisions of rule 2.3.8 and that's basically a way of saying that you won't keep records on adult use patients because to rule 2.3.8 says 2.8.3 sorry says that limits the types of records that can be kept for adult use patients and then it just notes what the record should contain if the person is a patient. So I've actually opened it up for board discussion since this is what there was I don't think it really was a final decision by the board on this this is a proposal in accordance with where the discussion sort of ended up based on information gathered from staff. This makes sense to me. Yeah. I mean I think where we left things are we are going to talk to the medical team and ask the genesis of this and the need for it and I think we've heard that it makes sense to me too. Great. Sounds good. Moving on to 3.5.5 quantity limits. So there was comments about the quantity limits more generally and one thing that came out of that was that it made sense to do in this rule we've done elsewhere which is instead of importing statutory requirements directly into the rule reference the statute because statutes change and they don't make it easier for folks trying to stay in compliance with the law to make sure that we don't end up with contradictions between statute and rule. One way to do that is to reference the statute instead of restating in the rule what the statute says at this moment in time. So this was rewritten to say in a single transaction dispensaries may provide no more cannabis than a patient has permitted to possess in accordance with any limit set by that statute in section 952 no more than the equivalent in cannabis products or no more than the permitted limit in a combination of cannabis and the equivalent in cannabis product. So it's basically exactly the same as what was there before just restated. What would happen if that statute was repealed? Then this would effectively this would just go away because it says in accordance with any limits set by the statute and if there's no limit set by that statute then there's no limit. One other thing we had here was 3.8. This is a new section and this is just putting in language that we've had for every other entity or person who's involved in the market which is just that you have to disclose your information of the changes between your application renewal periods or between your renewal periods. That's true for dispensaries for cannabis establishments for cannabis card ID holders and now we're making clear that it is will also be true for patients and caregivers and the language is the same as it is for everybody else there. This I can't remember. Did we give it a time frame for for people on the other side or how quickly we need to update. We haven't given any time to any of these and that's it for rule 3. Open it up for any other discussion. We go back to employee training which is not the title of the section. So it is found in 3.4.3 B. So in the current DPS role there's a requirement for confidentiality training for employees of dispensaries and I'd like to keep that doesn't appear here. And then for patient education that's not included in rule 3 and it is in the current DPS role. And thank and David could explain this better than I but I think we can just take what's in the current DPS role and put it in rule 3 so that patient education is still part of this role. Is it do we know what that looks like in practice. I don't I don't I'm I thought about it for a while because I know that we talked about it in some of our medical subcommittee in different conversations. What it says is that their hospital patient education that includes like methods of dosing like strains and terpene and things like that. It's not necessarily substantially different than the flyer that we've talked about but I think it would at least with patient education would specifically probably address the high THC high potency THC product that only the 3 can sell. Yeah, it's a good thing to include. Sounds good to make those changes. There to go rule 4. All right. So moving through rule 4 got a few changes here. First we start at the definition section. We got rid of the definition of campus license agent because that is no longer relevant. It's no longer part of the rules. We also made the same change to caregiver that I just discussed the definition of caregiver that I just discussed in rule 3. Moving to 4.3. There are a number of changes made here and throughout the rules. I should say that address a comment that the board agreed made sense to be responsive to, which was that rule 4 is not always clear that the board has the power to take enforcement action against cannabis establishment identification card holders. So those individuals who've effectively also been licensed by the board to work at cannabis establishments. Board agreed that was a fair point. And so here and elsewhere, and I won't necessarily point out every single one, but I'll point out a few of them as we go through. Changes have been made to make it clear that this does apply to cannabis establishment identification card holders as well. So an example is in this section, it used to just say licensees shall cooperate. Now it says licensees and cannabis establishment identification card holders shall cooperate. So in the same with 4.3.2, the same change was made. So that's one example. And there's a number of other examples later in the rule, which we can touch on briefly, but any questions come up about that. We can talk more about it. One other place where that change, a change was made to accommodate that point is 4.4.2, subsection C and D added that reference again to cannabis establishment ID card holders. Moving on to 4.5.1, which is the category one, category one violations. And a number of these, I would say are really quite technical. There is a change to H to make sure that the citation was correct and also just to use the same language that we've been using elsewhere in the rules with regard to control. We deleted one section because we thought it was repetitive. And a couple of places where it says selling, we added transferring in addition to selling because we use that language consistently throughout the rule, selling or transferring. And there was a number of times where this section and other sections said cannabis and we've been consistently referencing cannabis or cannabis product as the phrase we used to reference the regulated substance. A change that we made throughout is that we added corrective action plan as an option pretty much anywhere, because the commenter pointed out that even if there's something as severe as a suspension, you may also want to require a corrective action plan to make sure the person has a further entity, whatever it is, has a plan to not make the same mistakes or commit the same violation again. So that's been added in. And then there's also on all of the penalty sections, it as an and or to make sure that the board could do multiples of, you know, so it could be a corrective action plan and a suspension, for example. Can I ask a question about that as it relates to the ID card? So right now the ID card is attached to the license and if the board provides a corrective action plan instead of a fine or suspension of the card, does that have any impact on the at will status of the employee because we're providing a plan to correct instead of the employer doing it? I mean, we're a regulating entity that has authority to enforce compliance with our rules. How would an employer decides to deal with an employee who has brought them out, you know, gone out of compliance with the regulating entity with us is going to be up to the employer and not something that we really have control over. I think it would be the equivalent to any regulated entity where, like if a lawyer, for example, to take my own profession, got in trouble with the professional responsibility board, they have to do whatever the professional responsibility board requires them to do. And then if they work at a law firm or at the Canvas control board, for example, it would be up to their employer, the law firm or the board or whatever wherever it is they're working to decide how they're going to address that employee issue. And that could be that, but that's fully within the control of the employer and not something that the board can. Could interfere. So there's no correction that we could come up with that would also limit the employer's ability to do what they need to do. And what do you mean, the ability to do what they need to do? What are you thinking about? Well, if they wanted to terminate employment, right, based on a corrective action plan, there's no correction that we could come up with as a board that would limit their ability to do that. We couldn't interfere with that. Not knowing what a corrective action plan is going to look like. That's no idea of what the realm of possibilities are there. Right. No, it would be fully up to the employer to decide what they want to do. And if they wanted to terminate that employee, they could do that. Moving on to our next section. Again, a lot of sort of technical changes here. I don't think we need to go through every single one. One of the changes we made that's slightly more substantive and technical is to subsection D. And elsewhere in the rules, we made it clear that we're in this case, we actually are going to keep the language quite close to what the statute says in order to be a little bit more accommodating of the realities of how people are going to move around Canada's establishments, including Canada's establishments that may be at somebody's home. And so for that reason, subsection D was rewritten to adopt that language from elsewhere. It now says, allowing a person under 21 years of age to enter a transport vehicle or a building or enclosure on the premises of a cannabis establishment where cannabis or cannabis product is located. There's, you know, that's that's a violation. And then there's a carve out for patients, registry cards. But that was that now imitates the language elsewhere in the rule. And that does allow more flexibility. Of course, there's a balance. There are a couple of subsections that are added here. And again, these are in response to board discussions that didn't quite come to conclusion at the last meeting. But there were two questions that came up, which was basically that that were heard by other comments and they were basically the questions were, do we have a sufficient provision that names the issue of unlawful or unauthorized cannabis product so like somebody selling something an inhalant that had an ingredient that was not allowed under our guidance, which we're going to be put forward or something we're sort of a more general issue around testing requirements or general statement of testing requirements. And I reviewed it and felt that, in fact, we did not have sufficient language on those two pieces. That's not to say I do think that under our two things to say about that generally, one is that the board does have the power to if there's a violation that isn't named in these subsections, you still do have the power to issue a notice of violation and to put into the category that makes sense. So that's present. And I did think that there were ways we could have gotten at these issues without including this, but that clarity is always good. Naming things plainly is always good. And adding these two subsections in response to those four comments, I thought, did make sense after reviewing the full subsection. So I'd open that up to any discussion if there is any. This is a category two violation. This was in category two. And that's something that you could discuss, too. It makes sense. There's certainly a difference between intentionally doing this versus doing it unintentionally. I'll assume that we have different options in terms of how we enforce it, not how we enforce it, but with the violations. We do have three options here for this. Yes, I just I wonder if doing, you know, selling to say a vape cartridge with quite many S10 in it, you know, something that we know is potentially deadly, whether that should result in a fine or whether that should be as potential suspension or relocation. I say that because, you know, the original underlying intent of what we're doing here was a consumer safety angle. I mean, we know that there's a lot more to the legislative intent Act 164, the original kind of motivation was to protect consumer safety. So I think you're right. There's a difference between putting corners and doing this intentionally and then getting a product and having to use the information. So I guess my question is, I mean, and maybe this isn't a question we can answer now, who will ultimately be responsible for the selling or transferring of the product? Is it the retailer? Is it the is it all the way down the supply chain? Is it the ID card holder? Like who's the one who's the final piece? If it's the ID card holder and I have no idea, that's what's going to result. And, you know, some kind of training of such an option but if it's a manufacturer, we know what we're doing. That's I almost feel like we just don't have to include this. We can look at the facts of the case and decide how how severe it's required or sanctioned. That's required. Yeah, I agree. I think I think facts can be so variable, especially, you know, depending on if the retailer holds its own manufacturing license versus understanding that relationship. Yeah, David, do you have any kind of advice for us about if we were to leave this tower? Are we not being clear enough? Are we kind of being too vague with people that this is something that we're going to take very seriously? I mean, certainly you're still going to retain the authority to bring a violation against somebody who does this. I am always in favor of making it plain where things are and what you're going to do. I think that but it's obviously your decision. I mean, you could take it out and you would still retain the authority to take a violation, but I think some of the problems you're talking about are going to exist, whether it's written or not written. And so I think it might make sense to add something like knowingly selling or transferring an authorized or unlawful product because then that sort of or you could put it, you could divide it into two like you've done out like it is elsewhere where there's where there's an intentional one that's in one category and an unintentional one that's in a lower category. So I think there's a number of ways. I think those are fair points about who should bear the burden in terms of enforcement. And I think there's a couple other ways that you could deal with it that I would think will work better and will provide more warning than just deleting it entirely. I like adding no. I was going to say, even adding no in late and kind of help zone in on maybe the fact that her new retailer didn't maybe they both go well, you know, I mean. So at least in that given example. Yeah, I don't know what you think, but if we're going to do knowingly, what I mean, I think knowingly should be a class one category one violation. And then this kind of more general intent crime of selling her general intent violation could be a class two. Recognizing that, you know, we have the authority to kind of fit the sanction to the crime for the violation. So class one category one doesn't necessarily mean automatic suspension of the revocation license. It could be a fine or it could be corrective action. Yeah, so yeah, I would say we're going to do it this way, David, that we would do knowingly selling or transferring as a category one and that we would be able to see it. That sounds good. OK, with that. All right. I think that's all for the best that we can without the specific set of acts right now. We will be that moving on to the next changes here. Subsection L of four point five point three seemed to be exactly. Sorry, let me go down there first. It seemed to be exactly the same as well, now it's changed, of course, and it's very doubtful. I'd be right if you said exceeding maximum serving requirements for cannabis or cannabis products. Thank you. And that seemed to be exactly the same as category two violation we already had. So I thought it made sense to just which was the transaction limit part of a number of category two. And that was subsection is still is subsection I have category two. So it just thought it made sense to rely on that, but I did want to bring that forward. It's not the exact same. So if the transaction limit, you know, one ounce or the equivalent for transaction, this could be, I mean, maybe it's the same. This could be putting 100 milligrams of THC into a single package labeling it as 50 or something along those. I don't know why you should do that. That's what I'm saying. So it's not the exact same. But, you know, there's certainly similar aspects. No, I think that makes sense. Let's keep them both. Just in case such a hypothetical ever comes forward. The next change is. After a little while. On the aggravating and mitigating factors, which is four point seven, anywhere that it's a licensee, it's now says person. And again, the point of that is to make sure that we're being clear that this could apply to cannabis establishment. I D hold the car holders and not just licensees. A lot, you could argue that licensee was intended to include the ID card holder, but I think this is a clear way to write it. And the other reality is that as we discussed in the last meeting, the board could take an action against somebody who is not a licensee at all, who is operating without an unlicensed manner. So I think this is just a better way to say it. Sure. Moving to the next changes. We go to the issuance of the notice of violation and four point eight point four, the sufficiency of service. Peace. This has been reorganized a little bit, but there actually isn't much substantive change, except to say that we're making clear that you can achieve adequate notice by sending certified mail to the registered agent of a licensee. As recorded in the licensee's business registration with the Vermont Secretary of State, commenter pointed out that that would make sense, and it does. So we put that in. And then one other change. There are a couple of places in four point nine and four point ten were against tweak the language a little bit to be clear that this can and will apply to ID card holders. One more substantive change was to add a standard of proof to this process. So where and that is a fairly common thing when we talk about due process procedures and it will likely. You know, it provides some clarity for how the board should make their decisions and also may make it more likely that those decisions will withstand judicial scrutiny down the road. If the court can understand what standard the board was holding itself to and making its decisions. And so now subsection E was added in the same subsection as out of the four point ten that says to the extent a person is contesting whether a violation occurred, the board may not find that a violation occurred unless such a finding is supported by a congruence of the evidence. So that's all. This is going to be applicable to the board's own process. If somebody decides to appeal this to the next lawyer to the administrative law procedure and then potentially into court, that's going to operate under different a different set of standards. But this will, I think, provide some clarity to this process and hopefully make the board's decisions more likely to withstand scrutiny down the road. It's a little bit of an unusual situation because essentially what's happening is the person or entity who has gotten the violation is appealing directly to the entity that gave them the violation, but that's the nature of administrative action. Sometimes that's not unheard of at all. So just giving the explanation for why that is there, but I'm happy to open that up for discussion. I think it makes sense. So these violations will then contain kind of a statement of facts that kind of get us to a proponent to be evidence. And then kind of the violator, the alleged violator will have to argue that that's not a proponent. That's exactly right. So, you know, it says this is what's going to be in the violation will be required to be in the violation of the nature of the violation, the factual basis will be there. And then, you know, penalties and potentially a couple other things here and information about how to contest it. So, yeah, I think the person could say, well, you don't have enough facts or they could say the facts aren't what you said they are. And then the board, and maybe, you know, I think it's entirely possible that somebody will present to the board different evidence than what the board's investigators had found before and could certainly change the board's mind or show that there actually isn't a proponent to be evidence to show that they committed whatever the alleged violation is. And this is just a giving a clear standard by which to measure that decision. And the other thing I just want to note is the language says, to the extent a person is contesting whether a violation occurred. The reason why that's there is because this procedure also does allow for somebody to appeal to penalty, which is a very different type of consideration. There's no real factual question to be determined in that case. It's just sort of a general fairness question. So this is focusing on the evidentiary issue that might come up, but there's a question about the violation. So, thank you. No problem. I just got cut up checking some formatting, but I think we're okay. And that was it for other than a couple other minor tweaks. Again, many of them focused on that ID card holder issue. Other than that, those are the substantive changes to roll for it. So, David, what do you want us to do at this point? Do you want it to take some time and make the edits and then do a final sweep and then we'll vote? I think it makes sense to, yeah, to take a little break here. Yeah, take a little break. I'll put in the changes and then be able to present our versions with the... That sounds good. Then can you walk us through just the health warning issue? Yeah. Yeah. I think we can give a little bit of context because essentially what we're doing is reopening with two. I think we all remember, we got a comment about, I'll let David do the specifics about what the comment was. You know, as of the opinion, we're not going to change anything because the health department went through a process to get it to where it was, but I did send it to the health department to propose change. And they essentially said just that, like we went through a process. We don't have time to reopen that process and consider this because we just don't, we can't do it in the, but it was like a matter of days or a few minutes. Yeah, a weekend, right. And so, but subsequently, the department has what they said that they're, I think, well, David, you were the one that had the conversation, but they said that essentially that they're okay with the change. So I just want to look at it and see if we want to make the change. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. They did take a look at it in part that's because the Elkar process has been ongoing and Elkar expressed some interest in having folks look back at this. So they did that and here is the potential new language for the health warning. The changes are not significant, but they do account for the fact that this health warning is going to end up on a bunch of different things, not just product packaging. It'll end up on advertising might end up on advertising that isn't advertising product, but it's advertising a store or establishment or a line of products or also anything like that. So in order to accommodate that reality, the health warning now will just say if the board decides to go in this direction, a cannabis has not been analyzed or approved by the FDA. And then again, everything stays the same except for where the other mention of this product is a couple of sentences down. It'll now say possession or use of cannabis may carry significant legal penalties. One other piece of context here is that as the board knows any product packaging that does include cannabis will also have the THC warnings on it. So there will be clear if you have a package that has cannabis, it'll have the THC warning and then it'll also have this, but this works better for that situation and for the general advertising situation. And the health department was fine with this change. If they're fine with it. I thought that this made a little bit of sense some sense when we first looked at it, but again, we decided not to touch anything specifically kind of approved by the federal. So I'm fine with this change. You know, I mean, it makes practical sense. It doesn't really change the substance, right? But then we will approve that one as well. Sounds good. I think that has a proof of motion. All right, so that's it for now. I'll make those changes. When we do a public comment first, just in case, the following comes up and then we'll take a break for you to make the changes and we'll come back. Sounds great. So if you join via the link, we're now in our public comment section. Please raise your virtual hands. We'll take them in order to raise their eyes and we'll move to the folks on the phone if there are any. So you can help us with the order. Jesse Lynn is first. Good afternoon. How are you all? This is Jesse Lynn Dolan. I am a registered nurse. I'm a patient. I'm a caregiver. I'm also the president of A&A Vermont here and I'm a director at the American Cannabis Nurse Association. This speech, you know, my words do not necessarily represent them specifically. I wanted to comment on a few things on rule three and then also on rule four, please. So please mind me, I kind of wrote down some chicken scratch notes. I'm going to reiterate. You started out and mentioned that you do not record the social equity sessions that are, I believe, on Thursday evenings. And I would love to see if that's something that you could in the future record. I have attended some of those sessions and I think there's some great information out there. And there are some people who just cannot make themselves free at specific times. So having that recorded, I think would be really helpful. Couple of other things I wanted to mention specifically about the medical program. You guys mentioned transparency in the medical dispensaries themselves. I'd like to confirm whether that is only transparency that they specifically put forward as far as their passing lab tests. So if they have failing lab tests, if they choose to remediate their products, is that remediation going to be information the public knows that this cannabis has been remediated? Cause I know those are conversations that have been had. Also, as far as transparency around their language and labeling, I know the hemp program has done a great job and put very specific wording in that. If you have a distillate product, it is not allowed to be listed and advertised as full spectrum. I think that is extremely important for patients to understand and consumers. There's a very big difference medicinally and how products work when they are distillate versus if they are full spectrum. And I think both from the consumer standpoint and from the efficacy point for the financial burden that cannabis can be on many patients, we absolutely need to define that language. I have not seen any language defining, labeling parameters like that. So I'm hoping you're using and going off some of the parameters that the hemp program has put in place, which are great parameters, but I haven't necessarily specifically heard anything about that. I also had a question as to, are there gonna be more medical license available? And at this point, is there medical licenses opened up? Can someone apply for a medical specific license? I don't think I understand for sure whether that is an option. Regarding the education, I do know and understand you guys have a legislative mandate to not make more burdensome requirements for the medical dispensaries. So I just wanna confirm as to whether if there was a medical dispensary, he chose not to get an adult use license. They are no longer mandated to fully be transparent about their labs. I'm unsure about that, as well as do they have to have any education that the adult use needs to have or are they gonna be waived for that? I believe you guys talked about it, but I don't know if there's been a hundred percent confirmation on that. Another thing I'd like to mention and more specifically in the medical program than the adult use, but I would love to see the adult use though this way as well. When we talk about medical, THC is not where the limits are at. We absolutely have to understand the terpenes that are in our medicine again, for both consumer safety and financial efficacy. So I strongly believe that the medical dispensary program should be mandated to test terpenes, not just cannabinoids. And again, I would love to see the adult use program follow that as well. But when we're talking about consumer protection and efficacy, specifically medical patients, they absolutely deserve to have their cannabis tested for terpenes. And if we are not testing for terpenes, we are not doing our due diligence. Maryland, Connecticut, several other states are moving towards mandated terpene testing with cannabinoids. So if we could continue to push that, please. I will also continue to reiterate that I would love for something to be addressed along the lines of patients having better access. So right now patients are only allowed to shop at medical dispensaries and not pay that extra taxation. What we know is that the medical dispensaries are going to be providing the Budweiser of cannabis instead of the Heddy Topper of cannabis. And they also are very far. I have a patient that regularly drives from Newport to Burlington and would love to shop local at Craft Cannabis and not pay those extreme taxes. So at some point, if we can address that, I think that's more legislative. While we're talking about taxes, I know this is something Tito Bern brings up often, but unfortunately it's not something that has been taken up for the conversation continued, having vaporizers be something that is the safer way to combust cannabis. We should be encouraging that in the adult use rather than demonizing that or taxing that to the point that it's not an option. And then we are pushing people towards using that butane lighter instead of using a vaporizer. And that is on the state and the state taxation system for misunderstanding and not having the education, though they are repeatedly talked to about it and educated on it. So I would love that also. Another thing that hasn't been discussed in a while is I know since March 1st, the program, we've been looking at changing, you guys now have the program instead of DPS, the program funding that is still residing in the medical patients program bank account, is there a plan or support system around keeping that separate? I know that's something if Amelia was on this call, she would be asking as well. So those are just some thoughts regarding rule three. And like I said, some things that have been I feel talked about in address but not necessarily confirmed. I'd like to take a minute or two, I'll try to be quick on rule four as well. You guys, I have to say it really concerns me in the idea of a whistleblower not having any protection. As a nurse, I've been in the situation and had to be a whistleblower and had to worry about my job and my career and my nursing license. That is not putting patients first. I also feel that if it's up to employer to then be able to fire an employee that is doing their job and coming to the state with due diligence that there is some concerns about compliance or anything that we are setting up a system to have employees not feel comfortable bringing that information forward. About a year, year and a half ago, I worked for a CBD company here in the state of Vermont and did everything I could to ensure consumer safety and healthy products. Somebody that was working there called OSHA, rightfully so, because all the cannabis they were using was covered in mold. Nothing happened about it, but the four employees that did work there all no longer work there anymore because they came forward with concerns that there was moldy crops being sold into medicine and into CBD products. There was a state report, every employee is no longer there. So there is no consumer protection based on that. And that is the system from what it sounds like. Unfortunately, we are setting up moving into the cannabis realm as well. So I'd really just like to reiterate from both my nursing perspective and as a CBD employee here that I have seen some not great things come based on not having literal blower protection at all. And another one I'd like to just ask is as far as education for employees is do, I don't think we know yet, but is that the financial responsibility of the individual company they work for, the state responsibility, but where is the financial piece as far as people that need a specific amount of education are they burdened with cost? Is the state covering that? And I know you guys don't have indisclosable income unfortunately, or is that an expense that's gonna be the licensee holder themselves? So just a few thoughts as well, unrule four, excuse me, unrule four. I believe that's it. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Jesse. Next is Adrian. Hi there. How are you folks doing today? Great. Great. So again, my name is Adrian. I'm a reporter with NBC5 News. I have reached out to Nellie, who said she would put me in contact with one of you at some point today. But if you have time to answer a couple of questions when it comes to what businesses can expect now that more towns are bringing retail, have said yes to retail cannabis distribution, I know it was briefly brought up at the beginning of the meeting that applications and such may be happening in April, if that's correct, I heard correctly. So I'm just wondering in terms of just what businesses can expect if there are any rule changes? Cause I know this is retail cannabis has been a thing in certain cities and towns already. So for the people that have just voted in favor of it, is there any new things that they can expect to see for businesses who are trying to get into the business? And also, is there gonna be an encourage incentive or anything for more local distributors to kind of take part in this, as opposed to letting more outside entities come into the state and start participating in the retail distribution? Great, thanks, Adrienne. We'll be in touch. Thank you. I have no one else and there's no one joined by phone. Okay. Oh, wait, I got Tito. Hi, everybody, happy Monday. Just to comment a little bit about what Jesse Lynn was saying. And I know I've gone on on about this and I understand the limitations of the board are real, but in respect to the vape tax, there's a million problems with this vape tax. It just, it wasn't intended for cannabis, yet here we are all wrapped up in it. And the most bizarre part of the tax is that the current dispensaries don't pay on the exact same items that we're selling where we're expected to pay it. And it feels like all the CCB can do is file a recommendation, but I guess I just wanna make sure that in the least happens. Like just, you know, something's gotta happen. We need some guidance here on how to move forward. Thank you. Hi, Tito. So Jesse Lynn, I did see your hand go up and then I guess go down. This isn't, if you don't generally do repeat comments in these public comment sessions, we do have our kind of traditional after hours meetings where we do allow for repeat comments and we also, at the networking events, allow for kind of questions and answers and repeat questions, et cetera. So if you don't mind, you can, obviously you can submit, you know, comments to the board directly. We have a portal through our website for comments. We do read those every single time it comes through. So unless there's any other final comments, then I will close the public comment section. And before we break, do we wanna just have a quick conversation about any of the comments that we heard as they relate to rules three and four before we send David off to make final changes? Yeah. Yeah, any specific? I think that whistleblower already exists in certain areas of the state law. Anyway, particularly on safety. But I have to make it up. So I don't know that we need to add that to the rules. The, and it's not a perfect protection in the case that Jesse Lynn brought up kind of highlights that, which is, but we do, we will allow obviously for, you know, anonymous tips. You know, we will have a place on our website just like the agency that agriculture does to log complaints anonymously, but you know, it certainly doesn't help if an employer then goes and fires all of their employees because of the tip. Well, that is another argument for having me and you separate from the license. Yeah. Anything else we want to address? Again, you know, vape tax. You know, I think that the issue there is we would need to define what's cannabis vape versus a tobacco vape. If we're really going to try and get the legislature to not have the vape tax apply to cannabis products, which could be challenging. But I do agree that, you know, it's a huge burden to have a 92% tax on the kind of cleanest, healthiest way to do cannabis. The rules, the current PPS rules are those in place until July. Not. Okay. So, all right. Well, David, do you have all the kind of direction you need from the board on three and four? Yep, I think so. So it's just about noon right now. Do you want us to come back? I think I could be done in a half an hour. Okay. That good for everyone? All right. And then why don't we take a break until 12.30? We'll come back and just kind of review the final edits three and four then take a moment. Now, you have a screen. I am working on it now. Awesome. Thank you. All right, we're all set. All right. Well, it's 12.30, we'll get started again. So, David, I think the last thing to do is just do one last sweep of the changes, make sure everything looks good, and then we will vote on it. Sounds good. All right. So we will start here with the changes to rule three point four point three. I added the confidentiality piece to the end of A, which already had a related language. Plans to ensure patient privacy and confidence and now adds and confidentiality to the end of that. Added a new subsection C in line with the first two subsections here. It now says dispensary applicants must submit plans to provide educational materials to patients and if applicable their caregivers. Sound good? And then moving to rule four, we had just those changes around the, well, we had two different changes. One of the changes was around the unauthorized or unlawful products. And so now in, for the category one violations, there's been an addition that says intentionally selling or transferring unauthorized or unlawful cannabis products. And I use the word intentionally because that's the word we use throughout this section when we're talking about knowingly or intentionally or whatever, I figured it made sense to use the same language. And then in two, the category for, I should say in the category two section, I have unintentionally selling or transferring unauthorized or unlawful cannabis products or failing to abide by cannabis and cannabis product testing requirements. And the final change here was returning to section three, or sorry, category three, which is in 4.5 here, exceeding maximum serving requirements for cannabis or cannabis products is back in. That was it. We want, would you say unintentionally selling? We want unintentionally, I mean, essentially what we're saying on this, we might not be able to meet the burden of proof of knowingly, but it might not be an unintentional act. I just wonder if selling or transferring unauthorized cannabis, which does, in the least criminal law, default to kind of a general intent. If there's no specific language or anything. Yeah, I think that you could, I think it certainly would cover it. I just wonder if we're missing a gap there where we haven't found, we can't prove intentional, intentionality, but it certainly didn't seem unintentional. I mean, is there a gap there or am I just? I don't think there's a gap. I mean, I think because there's only two ways you can do something, which is you can do it intentionally, you can do it unintentionally, that covers the entire universe of action. I think what you're getting at though is the sense that just because we couldn't prove that it's intentional doesn't actually mean that it's unintentional. And I think you could count, you could account for that in the penalties, in terms of how severely you assess it. You have a belief that it's intentionally, can't quite prove it for a violation, but you can take it into account. Like negligently would be covered under P. Like someone who just, yeah, I think so. I mean, the other thing is you could just delete, I think it's fine to delete intentionally. I'm not speaking against that. I think that that would just be a broad category. It could cover anything. It could also cover what's in category one, of course, but that's okay. I don't think there's a problem in doing that. I only ask, like someone negligently sells these things. They like specifically like don't ask, don't tell me what's in there. Yeah, don't tell me, because then it might be, yeah. I think it makes sense. I think your point is valid and it makes sense to, it's a safer phrasing, even though I think we could cover everything that we need to in these two phrases. I think you're right that there's some clarity actually, we have to say that, but clarity that could be provided by deleting that word and making it clear that this does cover any permutation of unintentionality. Yeah. I think we should. Okay. I can remove on it. That sounds good. I'm coming with that. I see the kind of, the box, that's your, yeah. And then other than that, is there anything? That's it. That was the only stuff that. All right, so with that one edit, any, I take a motion to approve these rules three and four as amended here. Do we need to go through four first? Oh, this is. Oh, this is four. Sorry. So moved. Seconded. Any further discussion? No. Not for me. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Great. Great. And there's nothing left on the agenda. So I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you, David. Thanks. Really, I thought that was going to go on much longer. Okay. We can't possibly be done yet.